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BOOK OF GLAME 


A COMPLETE COURSE IN 

LIFE ELECTRICITY 


THE 

SOURCE OF VITALITY 


PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 

EDMUND SHAFTESBURY 


—- - 


ISSUED BY 

RALSTON UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 

1908 







USRABY Of CONGRESS 


Tv/o Copies Received 

NOV 7 1908 



Copyright 1908 

BY 

RALSTON UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY 


All Rights Reserved 







OUTLOOK OF THE COURSE 


M T WILL BE to the advantage of every student of 
these lessons to note the following facts in connection 
with the thoughtful consideration of the great array of 
truths that are contained in this course of instruction. This 
assertion is made at the very beginning of the work in order 
that there may be no reason for misunderstanding the pur¬ 
pose of the instruction. 

i. The word electricity is used in its most recent popu¬ 
lar sense, and indicates an enormous fund of vitality. It 
has no relation whatever to mechanical or commercial elec¬ 
tricity. While graduates of this course have been able to 
demonstrate the fact that they possess the gleaming fire of 
the eye which is seen in almost all highly energized animals, 
and also give forth electrical currents and flame in touch 
and glance, such uses of the new power may or may not 
be related to what we call mechanical electricity. The 
great majority of these graduates make no display even of 
such powers unless aroused to do so under some great 
stress of life. It is not material whether the fire in the 
eye or the spark in the touch may be known as electrical or 
not. The public have of recent years fallen into the habit 
of calling great energy of mind and body, electrical; and 
such usage has weight in a popular course of gaining. 

2. The same road that leads to the acquisition of Life 
Electricity must of necessity include the highway to health; 
but the latter does not reach to the citadel of the former. 
It does not go far enough. A person may be healthy and 
yet slow, sluggish and lazy. The electrified individual is 
awake, wide awake, full of energy, and expressing life in 
every nerve, thought and action. For this reason this course 
of lessons will not coincide at all times with the systems of 
hygiene. It will be much more limited. The student 
of the health books will often wonder why restrictions ap¬ 
pear here that are not included in these volumes. The 
answer is plain: Here we seek to accumulate an enormous 

3 




4 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


fund of vitality; there we attack disease and teach those 
who are well how to remain so. 

3. The whole system is included in these lessons. That 
is, everything that is directly or indirectly related to the 
attainment of an enormous fund of vitality, is placed within 
this course of instruction. It may be too much for any one 
person to master. No one is expected to acquire so much. 
Most persons have duties and are victims of habits and 
customs that prevent their adopting all that is herein taught. 
It is for this reason that the complete system is brought 
to them; for they may select such parts as suit their con¬ 
venience, while others take other portions, and every one 
is thus benefited. If a limited, concentrated method had 
been given, there would be many persons who would be 
shut out from most of it. Now there is enough for all to 
have at least some large part which they will be able to 
adopt and put to use. 

4. The adoption of a reasonable portion of this course 
of instruction will bring the results needed. Whatever is 
not of a nature to be used may be omitted. If your duties 
or the habits that are necessary to your routine life will 
not permit your adoption of all this course, you will never¬ 
theless acquire the enormous fund of vitality if you give 
attention to a considerable number of the teachings herein 
contained. Select what you can, and let the rest go. The 
results will be most gratifying to you, and you will speedily 
come to possess a large share of Life Electricity. 


A COMPLETE COURSE 

OF 

INSTRUCTION AND TRAINING 

IN 

LIFE ELECTRICITY 


BEGINNING FIRST 
WITH THE 

NEGATIVE DIVISION 

OR 


THE ENEMIES 










FIRST LESSON 


“ELECTRICITY” 


B T THE BEGINNING of a course of study and 
training, it is advisable to know what is to be taught, 
and the purpose of the teaching. Our first lesson 
will therefore take up the meaning of the term, Life Elec¬ 
tricity. As stated in our advance notices, the words are 
used in a popular way. Ordinarily electricity means that 
mechanical force which is so widely employed at the pres¬ 
ent day in the world of physics; or it may include the 
lightning that is flashed out of the clouds. 

It is a question whether the nervous currents of the hu¬ 
man body are electrical in the same sense. They spring 
from the ganglionic cells which are undoubtedly storage 
batteries; they run along the strings known as nerves, which 
serve as wires; and they discharge their currents upon the 
muscles which immediately contract and perform the work 
assigned by the brain. 

But with all these activities that resemble electricity, is 
it right to speak of them as electrical? Or can they be 
given the name of physical electricity, while the term me¬ 
chanical electricity is applied to all other kinds? 

In many instances during visits to mills where various 
grades of labor were being used, the employers or foremen 
have referred to some men as more valuable than others be¬ 
cause they possessed more “ electricity.” We have asked 
what was meant by the use of the word in that way, and 
have been told in substance that it indicated more general 
value, more perception, alertness, life. It was net mere 
quickness, nor mere strength. This use of the word elec¬ 
tricity is becoming common, yet it is not sustained by au¬ 
thority. But language grows by its own impulses and au¬ 
thority must give constant chase. 




8 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


Scientific men do not recognize any kind of electricity 
unless it can be measured by their rules, or stored in their 
batteries, or employed to furnish light or power. They 
at once declare that the human body cannot contain this ele¬ 
ment, unless it is discharged into it, and then it lacks the 
gift of retaining it. The reason for this difference of 
opinion is the failure to catch the uses made of the word. 
When an employer finds that certain of his men possess 
more of what he calls “ electricity ” than others, and for 
that reason promotes them with a liberal increase of salary, 
he is merely expressing himself in his own way; and this 
he has a perfect right to do. 

If the nervous currents that flow from the human storage 
batteries along the wires or nerves of the body to their goals, 
are given the name of “ electrical ” discharges, and this 
name is applied in a popular way merely to make the mean¬ 
ing more clear, the use of the word is perfectly legitimate, 
even if noted scientists do not like it. 

In the next few lessons the power of the title, Life Elec¬ 
tricity, will be better understood. It is enough now that 
the student shall not be led to believe that mechanical 
electricity is identical with that higher form of energy 
which is the source of life and growth. 


SECOND LESSON 


9 


“MECHANICAL ELECTRICITY” 


8 EFORE PASSING into the deeper consideration of 
our subject it is important that we look at the source 
of life that is on this globe. The student who sees 
only the result and never concerns himself about the Causes 
and influences that bring about the effect, is merely a 
surface reader. In any large city you will find a score of 
men who are highly educated in the operations of mechan¬ 
ical electricity, not one of whom has ever thought of the 
source of that mighty power. 

It is now agreed in a general way that the lightning 
that springs out of the clouds is identical with the current 
that produces both force and light. It is of the mechanical 
kind. In fact men have for some time been considering the 
means whereby the lightning might be caught and stored 
away for both power and light. 

In the winter when the sun is less active and the days are 
shorter because of the absence of so much of this orb’s heat 
and light, a thunder storm is a novelty. When spring re¬ 
turns and the days are much longer because of the greater 
abundance of heat and light from the sun, as in the months 
of May, June, July and August, thunder storms, lightning 
and electrical atmospheres are usually abundant. Even in 
rainless countries, the excessive heat charges the air with an 
excess of electricity. 

The point of this lesson is to make clear the fact that 
the sun is the father of mechanical electricity; of that kind 
that will, if properly caught and stored, furnish light or 
run an engine. Where the sun has ever shone, all sub¬ 
stances, liquid or solid, contain mechanical latent elec¬ 
tricity. Where the sun has never shone and its influence 
has never reached, you cannot generate electricity, for it is 
not there. In order to progress with these lessons it is 




10 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


important to keep in mind the fact that the sun sends all 
electricity to the earth. 

It is true that in the winter there is abundance of this 
power and it can be developed by machinery. It is in the 
air, in the clouds and in the sky during the winter; but not 
in overcharged condition. As the sun comes towards us in 
the late spring, then the excess of electricity is manifested. 
It bursts its mains and leaps to the earth, sinking to the 
depths of perpetual moisture, there to hide away from the 
orb’s influence that gave it birth; or, as is often stated in 
a careless manner of speech, to seek an equilibrium. 

This excess of mechanical electricity begins to make it¬ 
self known in the spring and at that time when life out 
of doors takes on new impulses of growth. This connec¬ 
tion is important. 


THIRD LESSON 

“VITAL ELECTRICITY” 

B OMING NOW by easy stages to the next step in 
our study, we find that in the spring there is a differ¬ 
ent form of energy at work in the realms of nature. 
In the preceding lesson it was learned that the sun brought 
with it in the late spring and through the summer an 
excess of mechanical electricity; that kind which the noted 
experts love to discuss and experiment with. They declare 
with equal pleasure that the human body does not contain 
nor can it retain anything like electricity; and this is un¬ 
doubtedly true when the mechanical form is meant. But 
anybody can Call anything by any name he pleases if he 
serves to help others to a better understanding of a great 
fact in the universe. 

In the same months of spring and summer when the 
sun is furnishing this excess of mechanical electricity, it 
is also drawing life out of the unknown and imparting it to 






VITAL ELECTRICITY 


ii 


the hungry world that uplifts its face from beneath its 
beating rays. The blades of grass begin to straighten up 
and take on vigor. Buds swell in the joints of trees, in 
limbs, branches and twigs. There is a mysterious activity 
in all the realms of nature. 

What brings about this new birth? Some say it is 
light; but many experiments with light have failed to cause 
growth. Some say it is heat; but heat of itself is wholly 
powerless to impart vigor into plant or tree. Some say 
it is the union of light and heat; but this union has always 
utterly failed, unless the sun, and the sun alone, has fur¬ 
nished both the light and the warmth. In addition to 
these two forces a third has always been necessary, and 
that third must come from the sun. No artifice, no sub¬ 
stitute can suffice. The sun contains the trinity of power: 
light, heat, and something else. 

In the late spring and during the summer months, when 
thunder storms are abundant and the air is charged with 
electricity, the sun furnishes light; it also furnishes heat; 
it also furnishes electricity of the mechanical kind. 

In the very same months, when the vital world is grow¬ 
ing in field and forest, the sun furnishes light, also heat, 
and also the “ something else ” that produces that growth. 
We cannot safely call this “ something else ” by the name 
of electricity, for it is not of a mechanical character; and 
the noted scientists do not recognize any other kind. 

Yet in the world of physics there are said to be several 
varieties of mechanical electricity. This being true, perhaps 
it is also true that one or more kinds may exist that have 
their activities wholly outside the realm of physics; operat¬ 
ing even in the vital zone of existence. 


12 


FOURTH LESSON 


‘LIFE ELECTRICITY’’ 


S ESPITE the narrow interpretation given to the word 
electricity, it has a scope as wide and as deep as the 
universe itself. It is one of the great agencies of 
the Creator whereby this solar system is reached from the 
central courts of heaven; and it is the direct current of 
communication between the sun and its planets. It is 
probable that the greatest of all powers sent forth from the 
orb around which these worlds revolve, is electrical, what¬ 
ever that may mean; and it is also probable that heat is the 
outcome of latent electricity, and light one of the expres¬ 
sions of electricity. 

Heat may be alive or dead; and so may light. When 
dead these forces are called artificial, a misnomer. When 
alive, they are vital and are then known as natural. If a 
plant that is sickly is said to need natural light, it is placed 
where the direct rays of the sun may touch it. If it is said 
to be in need of natural heat, it is put where the warmth 
of the sun may stimulate it. In one case it is light with 
the sun ; and in the other case it is heat with the 
sun. Yet light and heat, the kinds that are called arti¬ 
ficial, had their origin in the sun. Having become sepa¬ 
rated from the sun, they are regarded as artificial, and are 
powerless to revive the sick plant. The sun therefore must 
be present in its activity in order to yield the vital force 
that imparts life. 

The sun shines all the year round, and mechanical elec¬ 
tricity is produced all the year round. The sun shines in 
excess in the months of spring and summer, and the air 
overflows with mechanical electricity during those periods. 
In exactly the same periods the growing worlds, including 
the animal and vegetable kingdoms, take on their excess 




GLAME 


13 


of vitality and consequent increase. It is in such periods 
that sickly plants, coming into the blessed warmth of the 
king of this system, and under the rays of his powerful 
light, lift up their heads and breathe a new existence. Vigor 
and energy are received and everywhere reflected on earth. 

It would be the act of folly to separate the cause from 
the effect; the third power of the sun from the life that 
springs into being at the magic touch. This third power 
has been recognized but never named by science. It is 
well enough known, but not described. It needs a name, 
for in this generation the thinking men and women are 
turning to its study in the hope of finding the great secret 
cause of a life that they have not yet secured; a renewal 
of the vital powers that spring into being with the impulses 
of youth and hold its possessor immune against disease and 
decrepitude for a marvellously long time. 

To-day it is called Life Electricity. 

Some thirty-two years ago it was called by a shorter 
name. 


FIFTH LESSON 

“GLAME” 


VERY STUDENT of these lessons who has given 
close attention to the difficulties of naming the force 
that is sent by the sun into the life on earth, and that 
creates and sustains every form of existence here, will see 
the need of a name for that energy. In the olden times, 
way back in the first centuries of civilization, it was re¬ 
ferred to as the breath of life, and later as the spark of 
life, and still later as the vital essence of existence, and 
now it is called in a popular way Life Electricity. 

But the Ralston Health Club, an association of learned 
men of wealth that came into being in the year 1876 as 







i 4 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


an organized body of scientific investigators, having made a 
deep and thorough study of biology, and having carried 
on the most valuable experiments of modern times, con¬ 
cluded that a name should be coined for the life principle 
that is now under discussion. 

A short word of power and easy to pronounce was sought. 

It was resolved to find the five most potent words in 
speech and out of them to build the new word. It was the 
unanimous agreement of every member that God was the 
first, the greatest and the most potent word in all our 
language; and this stood as the beginning, the initial letter 
being taken for the purpose. 

The question now arose, What is the next most im¬ 
portant word? No one seemed to hesitate in selecting the 
word life. Thus God the first, and life the second, fur¬ 
nished two letters of the coined word. 

It was not so easy to find the third word in the due 
rank of value. Everybody was clear that God must stand 
at the head, and that life, next to the Creator, was the 
chief idea in the universe. God gave life. But life means 
progress. Every star is the center of a system of worlds, 
all of which are progressing. This earth was once dead 
rock; then it moved on to land and water; then marine 
life came into existence; then amphibious existence followed 
whereby animals were able to dwell on the soil or in the 
water; then reptiles crawled to the land and their offspring 
turned to birds and lived in trees while the soil was being 
drained of its water. After this there came four-footed 
animals, and from them those of two arms and two feet 
were descended, until man, erect and with head lifted to¬ 
ward heaven, came at last to crown the work of progress. 

All this is the plain story of geology. It is taught in all 
the high schools. 

It tells with mighty force the fact that change has 
always been going on in this earth, and that the change 
has been for the better. It is a constant and steady ad- 


GLAME 


i5 


vance, has always been, and always will be; and this fact 
seems to be the most potent in all life. 

Therefore the association came to see that the word 
“ advance ” was the greatest in existence. God was the 
first, and life the second; but without God there could not 
be life; and without life there could not be advance. God 
has made life that it might advance; and it is only through 
life that He can carry on the progress that is everywhere 
taking place. 

Thus the first three words were agreed to with unanim¬ 
ity. 

Where does advancement lead? 

In earthly careers it ends with death. Mortality is the 
goal here. This fact cannot be denied. Mortality there¬ 
fore is the fourth word. 

But mortality is not the end of the life that dwells in 
the body. 

Eternity is the last word. It is the goal of the life 
within the life. It is the end, and the beginning; the end, 
as we view it from the standpoint of earth, and the be¬ 
ginning as it must be seen from the other side of the por¬ 
tals. 

No greater words can be found in language than these 
five: 

God, Life, Advance, Mortality, Eternity. 

Try to secure a substitute and you will fail. Nor can 
one word be placed in a different arrangement. God must 
of necessity come first, and the one giant fact that springs 
from God is Life. From Life comes Advance. From 
Advance comes ripening and this means Mortality. After 
Mortality is Eternity. 

Try as hard as you may, you will not find five such 
words as these. They are the most important, the most 
potent, the most sublime words in human speech or human 
thoughts. 

What do their initials spell? 


i6 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


The word GLAME. 

Those of our students who have possessed the works of 
the Ralston Health Club during the past thirty-two years, 
will well understand the use that has constantly been made 
of this word. In book after book, the term glame has 
been discussed in its various bearings and meanings. It 
has appeared in systems that cost fifty dollars, and in others 
that have been sold for one dollar per copy; and in still 
others of intermediate value; showing the great importance 
of this coined word. For sixteen years prior to its first 
publication in print, glame was used in written lessons, 
reports and other forms, as all Ralstonites of long stand¬ 
ing can well attest. 

It was coined and adopted from necessity and not from 
a desire to foster a new word on the language. In con¬ 
nection with its constant use, its popular synonym, Life 
Electricity, was frequently applied in order to make the 
term more familiar; and this plan will be employed in the 
present series of lessons. A large number of people like 
the name Life Electricity; but it is not accepted as scien¬ 
tifically accurate because the general idea of all electricity 
is that it is mechanical only, and therefore cannot exist 
in the human body. Still we believe that it has come to 
stay. Only recently a public despatch from the Chicago 
Convention announced that “ on Thursday the assemblage 
was charged with electricity and everybody was full of life 
and determination to accomplish something.” This an¬ 
nouncement was read by millions of people all over the land. 
It is but one of the many instances of the popular use 
of the word electricity as applied to human activities where 
great energy is being exerted in mind and body. The 
same use of the word electricity will continue until the 
highest authorities recognize it as essential to the expression 
of the idea that is sought to be conveyed. 


i7 


SIXTH LESSON 


“BASIC LAWS” 


B OUNDED upon a few principles that are very easily 
understood, this study makes use of certain laws that 
are at the base of its system, and are therefore called 
basic. They will be stated in the present lesson and then 
explained in turn. 

i. Life Electricity, or glame, is excessive vitality. 

2. It comes into being naturally. 

3. It is born spontaneously when opposing conditions are 
removed. 

4. Helpful conditions give it further impulse and growth. 

5. Special practice controls it for all uses. 

6. Plant life and human life depend on the same laws of 
vitality. 

7. Human life is supported by plant life. 

8. Life Electricity is quickly wasted by extremes. 


The first of the basic laws states that Life Electricity 
is excessive vitality. The word excessive is not used to 
mean the extreme limit of vitality in its accumulation, for 
this can never be reached in this era. It intends to say that 
a degree of vitality that exceeds the common conditions of 
vigor and energy that are now prevalent in life is known 
as glame or Life Electricity. 

The second basic law states that this excess of vigor comes 
naturally. Under no system can it be present as an arti¬ 
ficial form of life. 

It is born of itself, and without direct effort on the part of 
its possessor when its enemies are removed. In other words, 
let any person take away the habits and circumstances that 
stand in the way of the existence of Life Electricity, and 
the latter will begin to enter the body and create a new 





i8 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


vigor there. This can be accomplished by any person at 
any time; and the plan will form one part of the present 
course of lessons on the subject. 

Having ascertained that Life Electricity is a natural 
endowment and that it comes freely when all obstacles are 
removed, we now find the fourth law to state that it may be 
encouraged by helpful conditions. These must follow and 
not precede the practice of removing the hurtful influences. 

Like every complete and useful system, this method of in¬ 
creasing Life Electricity in the body includes certain prac¬ 
tices that are allied to the natural processes of develop¬ 
ment, and that, after being used in developing the power, 
may be left as permanent and natural habits in the in¬ 
dividual. 

This blending of practices into habits, is of the highest 
importance and gives to this system a special value that 
is not found in any other line of human training. 

The sixth basic law states that plant life and human life 
are dependent on the same laws of vitality; and it is also 
seen that the latter is supported by the former. 

The last of these primary rules asserts that Life Elec¬ 
tricity is quickly wasted by extremes. All existence is poised 
between two extremes. Too much darkness is hurtful, so is 
too much light. The sun is the source of all life, and yet 
it cannot be received in its extreme heat. The freezing 
of the body destroys life, so does fire and hot water. Action 
is necessary to health, but over-activity breaks down the 
body too fast, while sloth weakens it. Starvation brings 
death, and surfeiting sets up disease. 

Instances of extremes could be cited almost without limit, 
and the same general principle runs through them all. 


19 


SEVENTH LESSON 


‘‘OPPOSING CONDITIONS” 


PERSONS live to a great age and investiga- 
tors seek the cause. They pronounce it due to a good 
constitution to start with, and to a proper mode of 
living as an aid to the inheritance of health. There are 
persons whom disease cannot easily kill. They are said to 
be endowed with a wonderful vitality. In the crisis of a 
malady they rally against the expectancy of friends and 
physicians, get well, and go on living to an advanced age. 

There has never occurred a case of great longevity that 
was not directly ascribable to the absence of many of 
the opposing conditions that stand in the way of the pres¬ 
ence of Life Electricity in the body. This is a negative ad¬ 
vantage. It shows the law of spontaneous growth of vital¬ 
ity ; coming of itself when the way is clear. 

A man who has studied this subject for many years, came 
to the conclusion that every man and woman should study 
the conditions that attend them in their daily life, and as¬ 
certain what are hindrances to the attainment of a vigorous 
vitality. He said, “These hurtful influences are not ob¬ 
scured to the mind of any one who wishes to find them out. 
They may be seen, known, and then put aside.” 

If you were to ask for the easiest of all roads to great 
vitality and consequent health, you would be shown this 
simple method. Look for the conditions that stand in the 
way of such a result. It is well said that intelligent men 
and women, after being informed of the influences that 
stand as hindrances to health, unconsciously avoid some of 
them and so gain part of the prize sought. 

The current lives of individuals that are tending toward 
a great longevity, are being studied. Some have no plan 
by which they live. Others follow a code or regime in 




20 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


habits and diet. A third class combines these two modes. 
It is always interesting to watch the lives of men and 
women who adopt no plan, but who nevertheless are gain¬ 
ing rather than losing vitality as they advance in years. 
All of them avoid the conditions that stand in the way of 
good health. They do not know it, as it seems; but a sug¬ 
gestion of something harmful is always sure to bring from 
them a protest. They have native good sense and know 
enough to use it in the greatest of all channels, the build¬ 
ing up of' a vigorous vitality. 

They are examples to be copied from. They must be 
seen and known, not read about in the advertisements of 
whiskey and patent medicine concerns that bolster up out¬ 
rageous falsehoods to spread the use of death-dealing fluids. 

To every general rule there are one or two exceptions; 
but to the rule that the removal of injurious influences will 
start into being a vast flow of Life Electricity, there is 
never an exception. Bad habits may be injected into an 
excellent plan of living, and still the vitality grow strong; 
but no one good habit can out-balance a horde of evils in 
any life. A man or woman who eats proper food and 
lives out of doors much of the time, may take on some 
error or fault and still not suffer; but this exception does 
not warrant the claims that are so freely made that to¬ 
bacco and liquors can be taken without harm to the body. 
Out of every one hundred persons who reach the century 
mark in life, ninety-eight of them have wholly abstained 
from both tobacco and alcohol in every form. This is a 
fact that has been amply proved. 

Every stimulant, whether given as medicine, taken as a 
drug, or drank as a fluid, burns up some part of the body; 
just as the man who owned a great mansion, made a prac¬ 
tice of tearing out a part of it in order to procure fuel for 
his fires. He stopped before the entire house was demol¬ 
ished, but the torn and rent structure was never again 
what the builder had made it at the start. This is the 


THE ENEMIES 


21 


process of stimulants; they burn up some portion of the 
human body and the damage, slight in every instance, counts 
up a fearful total in time. 

These are but two examples of the enemies to vitality. 
In order that they may all be studied in exact form, they 
will be considered in their order in subsequent lessons. 


EIGHTH LESSON 


‘ THE ENEMIES” 

£ IFE IS SURROUNDED by enemies so numerous 
and powerful that the wonder is the race has sur¬ 
vived their attacks. These enemies are present in 
every form and may be studied in classes or groups. Some 
arise in the activities of the mind, some in the dangers to 
the lungs, some in the diet, some in the membranous sys¬ 
tem, some in bad habits, and some in a variety of other 
ways. For the purpose of these lessons they will be con¬ 
sidered in the following divisions: 

I. Enemies that originate in the mind. 

2. Enemies that arise in the nervous system. 

3. Enemies that assail the stomach. 

4. Enemies that injure the lungs. 

5. Enemies of the membranous functions. 

6. Enemies in habits. 


Before these classes of opposing influences are studied 
in their proper turn, it is advisable that the student seek 
to think out the meaning of this arrangement, and as¬ 
certain in what way these enemies may do harm to the vi¬ 
tality. This will make you thoughtful and deep in your 
analysis of the problems that confront us at this stage of 
the work. 

What are some of the enemies of the mind? In what 







22 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


way may the mind or the thoughts lower the vitality and 
injure the health? What connection is there between the 
brain and the other organs? 

Then direct your attention to the nervous system and 
endeavor to name some of the faults or weaknesses of that 
part of the life of the body that depress the vitality. At 
first you may not think of any of them; but as they come to 
your thoughts you will be repaid by a better understanding 
of the importance of the study by reason of your having 
found them out for your self. 

When you consider the stomach you will have no diffi¬ 
culty whatever in enumerating a large class of enemies that 
harm the body, for the dietary habits of to-day are be¬ 
coming more and more barbarous, breaking every known 
law of hygiene and good sense at the same time. 

In this way give close attention to the six groups stated 
in the first page of this lesson and endeavor to make written 
lists of all the enemies of which you can think. 

Then turn to the lessons that follow and compare your 
list with those therein given and note the difference, if 
any. 


NINTH LESSON 


‘ INFLUENCE OF THE MIND” 


PERSONS are wholly controlled by their 
minds. Few indeed are masters of their thoughts 
and wishes. Many of the most contented people 
are indifferent and weak-brained, caring little for what 
the world may have in store for them, and not knowing 
how to cope with its many problems. Being contented, 
they have no mental sufferings that hover over the day, 
and so they escape the wear and tear of worry. 

But they may be healthy without being vitally strong. 





INFLUENCE OF THE MIND 


23 


They have no Life Electricity and are therefore useless to 
themselves and to the world. Power and influence can¬ 
not be born in an indifferent brain or in one that is weak, 
no matter how well it may seem when considered as a 
sane organ. It has for generations been a common saying 
among physicians that poorhouse inmates and sovereigns 
live the longest, because they have the least to worry about; 
and this belief has been to some extent warranted by the 
longevity of the two classes referred to. 

Negative qualities have some value; but affirmative qual¬ 
ities are nobler. 

How to reach the advantages that Come from a mind at 
peace with itself and the world, is no small task. 

That the influence of the brain over the body is very 
great, cannot be doubted. Every mood plays some im¬ 
portant part. All the dark moods are hurtful, as they slow 
the action of the heart, reduce respiration, and cause the 
stomach to hold its food for a long time in a state of 
indigestion ending in more or less of ferment. An active 
stomach cannot ferment. For this reason the bright moods 
are directly helpful to gastric work. If you can keep the 
nervous system in its relation to the stomach, full of action; 
and if you can keep the juices flowing into that organ; 
you may eat anything that you please in any reasonable 
dietary, and you will digest it easily and completely. 

The brighter the moods of the mind, the more active 
will be the stomach, its nerves, and the gastric juices that 
do the work of change there. Some systems have recently 
been invented that include a mental training for carrying 
on digestion. These are mere fads. It is not possible to 
be bright when you are sad or deeply depressed. It is 
not possible to order the stomach to do its work when the 
circumstances of life for a time make you feel that you do 
not care whether it works or not. Faith has also been en¬ 
listed as a power to control the health; but in the great 
crises of existence, faith is weaker than the powers that 
control mind and body, and so must fail. 


24 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


A substantial, practical and effective method is the only 
plan that will survive in stormy weather when everything 
seems to be awry. 

The beginning of all the dark moods is the inborn dis¬ 
position to see trouble ahead. A man recently bought land 
and built a house that cost him all the money he had saved 
for many years. He w^as working at the time, but caught 
a suspicion that he would be out of employment very soon. 
This caused him to take pencil and paper and figure out 
his expenses for a year ahead, and his probable shortage 
of cash in case he should be unable to have steady work. 
So deeply did the danger sink into his mind that he could 
neither eat nor sleep for two days, and was a physical 
wreck. This made it impossible for him to perform his 
duties and he was discharged. In the letter of discharge, 
the employer stated that he had arranged work enough 
to keep him busy for a year or more, but owing to his 
sudden illness another man had been put in his place. 

This is a typical case. 

The worry took all the electricity out of the man. His 
stomach could not take food. Anxious thoughts kept him 
awake at night. Then came the breakdown, a perfectly 
logical result. 

Men and women may in this class of cases learn to con¬ 
trol their minds; for once the mind runs away it cannot 
easily be controlled again until events have changed the 
course of life. 

Life Electricity can no more dwell in the person who 
worries than fire can live long in gunpowder. 


25 


TENTH LESSON 


“DEVELOPMENT OF WORRY’’ 


e lFE ELECTRICITY has no more serious enemy 
than the habit of worry. This bad influence sits 
like a cloud over every field of human endeavor. 
It swoops down on the buoyant springs of glame and 
smothers every flicker of light that seeks to burst into 
flame. It is a dampening, deadening fog that chills hope 
and quenches the rising spirits of the heart. 

It is the easiest thing in the world to say, “ Don’t 
worry.” This advice is given daily, hourly and minutely 
wherever depression and self-generated troubles are aired 
before friends or relatives. The very persons who give this 
advice do as much worrying as those to whom they give 
it. The cure is seemingly impossible. It involves a rare 
power of mind to master this evil. 

Worry is a faulty mental action. It feeds on repetition. 
The man who taught a class of boys to drum with their 
fingers made them all a source of annoyance to their friends. 
If you drum with the fingers for a short time each day the 
muscular habit, by repetition, will take up the practice 
until you will drum unconsciously many hours daily. 
The same is true of the mind. It soon becomes a slave to 
the habit of seeing the dark side of everything, and feeling 
the chill of possible failure in every undertaking. 

Most persons fail to see the difference between vigilance 
and worry. The former scents out trouble and avoids it; 
the latter sees it and suffers because of the sight. As 
nothing is perfect, the habit of worry brings the imperfec¬ 
tions to light, magnifies them, and deplores their presence. 
More than this, it even predicts trouble, and acts as a clair¬ 
voyant powder to discover the hiding places of mishaps. 
It is prey to ills that actually occur and that, for lack of 




26 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


prevention, cannot be helped after they are on the move. 
In the era of plenty, the full income was spent, and nothing 
saved for the rainy day; then come the years of pinching 
poverty attended by constant fear of the poorhouse. Or 
in days of health, there was indifference to the needs of the 
body; then come the years of sickness when it is too late 
to mend. Thus we see that worry is founded on actual 
stress as well as on the general fact that all things have 
their dark side, and all deeds their defects. There is al¬ 
ways enough to worry about, if one is so inclined. 

In this age of high strung nervous tension, when business 
and pleasure are rushed with ever increasing haste, the 
power of resistance is reduced a mere pulp, and people 
give themselves over to their feelings and their fate. They 
drift down stream at first, then enter the rapids and are 
tossed headlong onward. This is an era of non-resistance 
to the powers that deal blindly with the human race. The 
habit of worry is on the increase because of the apparent 
helplessness of men and women in the struggle for self- 
mastery. 

The habit of worrying cannot be cured by advice. It is 
not lessened by good fortune; for, with acquired wealth, 
new duties arise, and these cause greater anxiety. It is not 
remedied by medicine or treatment of any kind. The most 
successful method is that which is known as the philosophy 
of worry. 


27 


ELEVENTH LESSON 


“INFLUENCE OF WORRY” 


■ HEN a person is inclined to worry the results on the 
physical health are not imaginary. Nothing could 
be more real. There are three functions that con¬ 
trol the vigor and well being of the body; the most im¬ 
portant of which is respiration. A man or woman who is 
free from the habit of worrying breathes much more deeply, 
makes more and better blood, and possesses a greater degree 
of vitality. 

Many experiments have been made upon these two classes 
of people, and always without their knowledge. The in¬ 
dividual who does not worry breathes regularly, in strong 
rhythm, and very deeply. More air enters the lungs. Life 
Electricity depends primarily on the amount of air that is 
inhaled every day. The other class of people includes 
those who worry. Observations show that they breathe ir¬ 
regularly, without rhythm, and without depth. 

A severe attack of worry will seemingly shut off all 
respiration, sometimes for hours. A glass placed in front 
of the nostrils will not disclose moisture. The chest has 
no motion. There is a half-dead and dazed holding of the 
breath. This alone is sufficient to destroy all Life Elec¬ 
tricity. 

Similar interference with the gastric juices of the stom¬ 
ach are readily noted. Pleasure, good news, or a buoyant 
nature will invite appetite and digestion; for they cause a 
flow of juices into the stomach to act upon the food as it 
enters. The person who worries is deprived of this ad¬ 
vantage; the stomach is dull and dry as compared with the 
condition of one that is bright and cheerful. Food is not 
acted upon; it ferments, and indigestion follows. 

Countless instances of these opposite influences have been 





28 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


collected and are well known to all physicians of expe¬ 
rience. Many a meal has been turned to stagnant foulness 
and dyspepsia by the sudden approach of some idea that 
enters the mind and sets it to worrying; often a trifle, for 
to the magnified brain all mole hills are mountains of 
trouble. 

The circulation of the blood depends on the power of 
the heart, and the latter organ does its work either weakly 
or vigorously, according to the impulse within the body. 
Respiration, digestion and circulation have their springs 
of instigation in the small centers at the base of the head. 
By artificial interference, they are all helped or hindered; 
they can be stimulated or depressed. These nerve centers 
are fed by life currents that are generated by buoyancy, by 
good news, by high spirits, by the bracing power of fresh 
air, and by many causes along the same lines. 

Worry shuts off the flow of these life-currents. 

It turns the vital juices that feed the nerves, into acidu¬ 
lous and sour streams, the action of which on the centers 
that feed the heart, the lungs and the stomach, is very de¬ 
pressing and weakening. Any person can make practical 
observations of the results of worry, by noting the beating 
of the heart with the aid of the instrument generally em¬ 
ployed. The doctor says, “You are not well. Your vi¬ 
tality is very low,” and immediately the heart will change 
its beating. The difference is quite marked. But if the 
doctor says, “Your heart is perfectly well; in fact the 
strongest and healthiest I have known for years,” that organ 
will respond with evidence of new life. 

Find the person who worries and listen to the habitual 
beating of his heart. Then find one who is buoyant and 
bright of spirits, and note the better, clearer, more vigorous 
action of his heart. Now it cannot be true that this im¬ 
portant organ can do feeble duty and yet supply good 
blood in abundance to all parts of the body. In so far 
as it fails in this function, there must be atrophy, ill 


INFLUENCE OF WORRY 


29 


health and suffering in all the other organs, and particularly 
in the composition of the blood; for circulation is required 
to pump the nutrition everywhere throughout the entire 
body, and blood is nothing but nutrition in a state of read¬ 
iness to build the structure of life in all its intricate parts. 

The better the heart does its work, the better will be 
the health and condition of each and every particle of the 
body. 

The more air that is brought into the lungs, the more life 
will be carried into the brain, the nerves and the functional 
activities. 

The more readily and thoroughly the stomach digests 
food, the better nutrition will be furnished the blood. 

Any one of these influences will advance the health and 
increase the life of a person. 

Any two of these influences will still more enhance the 
vitality and improve the health. 

The combination of all three of these influences will work 
wonders in any individual. 

As worry depresses all three of them, it can be seen at 
a glance that this evil bird must be choked into quietude and 
sent from the home and life of the man or woman who 
is the victim of the most common enemy of Life Elec¬ 
tricity. 

The cure is not easily obtained. Experiments have been 
made for many years, and the only effectual remedy is to 
be found in the philosophy of worry. 


30 


TWELFTH LESSON 


‘PHILOSOPHY OF WORRY” 


?£^(j$TRANGE as it may seem the cure of this most evil 
habit is to be found in broadening the mind. In 
the first place, worry is an automatic activity of the 
mental faculties. The brain is inclined to turn inward 
toward every object. It reverses the process of radiation. 
It sees things narrowly. Each spell of worrying brings it 
nearer to a focus and lessens its scope of perception. It is 
like the gait of the person who toes in, or the gaze of one 
that is cross-eyed. 

The one great remedy lies in the shifting of the view point 
and the widening of the range of vision. 

Whenever a person thinks broadly he philosophizes. 

He looks out into a greater distance day by day. He 
sees the world, not as the small backyard of his own weak 
nature, but as the gigantic field of great operations. He 
talks to himself as if he were on another planet and looked 
down on his feeble existence here as a mere trifle in the 
plan of universal operations. 

The following method of philosophizing has been in pri¬ 
vate use for the past thirty years and has enabled many 
a person to break the chains of worry, by enlarging the 
scope of his vision. There are several steps in this process, 
and they will be stated here in their logical order. 

Littleness of humanity. 

There are many billions of suns in the sky. Each sun 
is called a star. Each such star is the center of a system 
that contains many worlds known as planets. Each such 
world contains millions or billions of people. \ 

Our sun is a small star. This earth is a small planet. 
As compared with the millions, billions, trillions of other 
worlds in the sky, this earth is like a grain of sand on an 
.endless shore. 




PHILOSOPHY OF WORRY 


3i 


At some point of vision distant from this orb, let us 
look upon the swarms of people that rush over the surface 
of the globe. They seem like ants. When ants are build¬ 
ing their hills and mounds, they are very much in earnest 
and are very active; so humanity is likewise full of eager¬ 
ness and hustling speed; building, working, planning and 
worrying. With the rise of each day’s sun, these swarms 
of human ants rush forth from their homes, dig in labor or 
pleasure all the livelong day, and come back at night to get 
under cover. 

Littleness of time . 

These swarms of human beings that at a distance seem 
like tiny insects, come and go in endless succession. A gen¬ 
eration is as nothing. The ant is born to-day, is full grown 
to-morrow, and the next day is known no more. Human 
ants spring up as quickly to the greater eye, and are as 
quickly vanished, leaving no trace behind. 

That greater vision has seen the earth pass from a state 
of rock to a state of fertile soil as in the twinkling of an 
eye; yet it revolved on its axis billions of times, and cir¬ 
cled the sun a hundred million years; but this vast lapse 
seemed as nothing. 

A century is reeled off so quickly that it is too small a 
trifle to arrest the attention; yet a woman giving birth to a 
child looks upon the hours of suffering as an age of dura¬ 
tion. But millions are born year in and year out, new 
beings are opening their eyes to the wonders of earth, they 
grow, they build, they accomplish gigantic tasks, and they 
pass on. A hundred-story building in a great city is a 
pigmy compared with a high mountain; the high moun¬ 
tain is an almost invisible pimple on the surface of the 
earth; the earth is a grain of sand in the sky and man is 
smaller than a fleck of dust on the petal of a flower. 

His coming is so slight an event in the succession of a 
thousand generations that there is no way of permanently 
recording his achievements. The remotest event of history 


32 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


is not six thousand years old; and the earth is more than a 
hundred million years of age. 

The hundred-story building is a mass of enormous size to 
the gaze of the human ants. To one who could handle this 
globe like an egg, it would not disturb the marble-like 
polish of its surface. Cities that contain massive structures 
will some day be rolled under the crust of this earth, and 
not one trace of them will be found by the peoples who shall 
come here six thousand years hence. 

To the greater eye this world is rushing on with whirling 
speed; weeks, months and years are too slight to be counted; 
nothing but aeons are worthy of attention; and yet an aeon 
witnesses the rise of the races, the flocking of the rapid 
centuries, the writing of a few thousand years of history, 
then the wiping of the slate to erase everything. Seventy 
years on this planet is in fact no more than the span of life 
of the germ that is born, grown, aged and dead, all in ten 
minutes by the clock. 

Unconcern of the future. 

One hundred years from now you will be wholly for¬ 
gotten. Somewhere by chance a picture of you may sur¬ 
vive, but it will serve no purpose except to excite possible 
comment as to the strange manner of dress of a benighted 
ancestry; but the chances of this attention are so slight as 
to be improbable. 

You play no part of importance in the plan of the uni¬ 
verse. Every year many millions like you pass to their sleep 
in earth. They have been going and coming for aeons. 
They will keep coming and going for aeons yet. You 
happen to be in the generation that is the present connect¬ 
ing link between the past and the future. You might have 
been born in the dark ages, or at that stage when history 
was new, or far back in prehistoric times; or your advent 
might have been left to such a period as when New York 
City will be two thousand years old. You might have 
sprung from some Malay, or some African, or some canni- 


PHILOSOPHY OF WORRY 


33 


bal in the hot islands, or been a Laplander; chance has 
placed you here and now; but it does not matter. If your 
greatest achievements were to over-topple the tasks of the 
past, they and you would disappear and be wholly lost in 
the melting changes of time and nature. 

What is the use of worrying when there is nothing at 
stake for you ? 

You think and fear that this trifle or that trifle is fear¬ 
fully and terribly wrong. The spot on your clothing, the 
loss of a dollar, the breaking of the glass, the ill remark of 
an acquaintance, this, that, or something else, racks your 
mind and depresses your buoyancy. The rich man who 
loses all his wealth is to be pitied. The calamity that has 
overtaken you may be worse. But what does it matter? 
Humanity are but insects, ants that swarm to and fro about 
the surface of the world. The span of the longest life is 
but a second of time on the clock of the universe. In a 
century it will not matter what you win or lose, what you 
accomplish or suffer. 

Look upward and outward; not downward and inward. 

Then you will worry no more. 

Toothaches, earthquakes, disasters, holocausts are seem¬ 
ingly great evils; but what difference will it make when 
the surface of the earth is rolled up as a scroll, and a new 
jeon shall be under way? 


34 


THIRTEENTH LESSON 


“THE NERVOUS SYSTEM” 


B ABITS OF TEMPERAMENT arise in the ner¬ 
vous system and affect the general life of each 
individual. Some persons are sluggish, and do not 
dispose of the food that enters the body; the result being 
undue inactivity and loss of executive ability. Not all 
heavy persons are sluggish, and not all thin persons are 
alert; although as a general rule the slow mind and dead 
nerves tend to the accumulation of fat in the body if one 
eats liberally. On the other hand there are some persons 
who possess Life Electricity in great abundance who are 
stout and physically cumbersome. 

The two enemies of the nervous system that interfere 
with the acquisition of this power are: 
i. Sluggishness. 

2. Uncontrolled nerves. 

Sluggishness appears in all persons who like to be waited 
on; who will not act for themselves if they can get some 
one else to act for them; who dislike to change from one 
task to another; who dislike to get out of fixed ruts in the 
performance of duties; who take no interest in anything 
in particular; who lack enthusiasm for a cause; who see no 
use in anything; who are willing for others to carry on all 
the good work of the world, or let it go undone; and who 
are never aroused to a realization of the fact that they may 
find many ways of improvement for themselves and for 
others. 

If you belong to the sluggish class, whether you are stout, 
or thin, large or small, tall or short, you cannot acquire 
Life Electricity; for this power comes only by attraction, 
and sluggishness repels the very essential of vitality which 
is alertness. 




THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 


35 


The second enemy is called uncontrolled nerves. 

A person whose nerves are not controlled has the follow¬ 
ing faults: 

1. He is irritable; not of mind but of body. 

2. He loses half of his vitality by automatic motions. 

3. What he does he does at a loss. 

Irritability of the nerves and muscles will cause many 
mistakes, accidents and blunders which lead to embarrass¬ 
ment as well as loss of confidence in oneself. The slip of 
the knife or pin is a common example, showing the result 
of this fault; but they are not by any means all, for there 
are many clumsy and awkward motions that cause breakage 
and other damage, and that keep the nerves of the person 
in a state of turbulence. Every day something goes wrong. 
If the loss costs money it leads to worry and consequent ill 
health. 

“ I am so nervous that I can never do anything right,” 
is a remark that is often heard; and the person who makes 
it is always depressed in vitality. 

Automatic motions are also one of the classes of faults 
common to this line of weakness. Some part of the body 
is active all the time. The head, the arms, the hands, the 
fingers, the legs, the knees, the feet, even the toes of a 
person are in motion. These are signs of coming neuras¬ 
thenia, and often precede insanity. Paresis of the brain may 
be induced by automatic activities. Vitality is run out of 
the nervous system just as the leaking pipe lets the oil free 
or keeps the stock on hand low and depleted. 

Of all the weak men and women in the world who think 
they are victims of nervous breakdown, nine out of every ten 
are guilty of this common fault of automatic motions, and 
do not know it. Nothing but a moving picture could prove 
it to them. 

Lost activities constitute the third fault in this class. 

They occur when something is attempted and not done 
with the least possible effort. The difference between the 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


36 

second fault or automatic motions, and this fault is in the 
purpose of the mind and nerves. In the former case there 
is no consciousness of the activities of the body; and un¬ 
conscious action does not tax the powers of the body more 
than half as much as does conscious action that runs to waste. 

There is a law of magnetism that comes into play which 
says in effect that every action of the muscles, which is of 
course driven by the nerves, forms a resistance to the flow 
of electricity along the threads and wires of the body if 
such action obeys the mind. Thus resistance becomes a 
dam to the flow and takes it at its flood, sending back 
more power than is sent out; for the excitement of the ac¬ 
tion sets in motion a strong current of electricity. This 
rather long statement embodies one of the best known laws 
of magnetism. 

When the muscles perform the work assigned and with¬ 
out loss of any unneeded action, then the current is caught 
on the increase and sent back to the storage batteries 
stronger than when it came forth. There are all sorts of 
exercises in works on magnetism that are employed to effect 
this increase of vital power. 

But, on the other hand, when any motion that is sent 
forth by the act of the will, is allowed to run out without 
resistance, the result is a loss of the entire flow of elec¬ 
tricity. There is no damming to cause or set up a resistance, 
and the whole stream of vitality is lost. 

Activities that are so expended deplete the storage bat¬ 
teries in the nervous system, or empty what is called the 
ganglia, or ganglionic cells, and nervous weakness and weari¬ 
ness follow. 

Examples of loss of action may be had in thousands of 
the incidents of the day. You try to button a garment. 
You take hold of the cloth and the button, making several 
motions before you succeed. One smooth steady action 
should be sufficient; but the more nervous a person is, the 
more motions will be made. You may count from three 


THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 


37 


to ten such efforts in the case of each button, making an 
average of about forty lost motions in attempting to secure 
ten buttons. Had there been no loss of motion, the elec¬ 
trical currents would have been sent back resisted and made 
stronger; but the loss has allowed most of them to escape. 
That weakness follows may be easily proved by watching the 
lines of the face when a nervous person tries to do some¬ 
thing and is thus hindered by the erratic action of the nerves 
directing the muscles. You will see first a slight flush of 
color to the cheeks, denoting irritability, then a whitness 
will follow, the lines will draw down on either side of the 
mouth, and the forehead will wrinkle and be contorted into a 
scowl. 

In a report from Vassar College written by one of the 
senior class, the following description is given to us of the 
rapid growth of this habit of lost motions: “ My room¬ 

mate was becoming more and more languid and sickly with¬ 
out apparent cause, and I resolved to closely observe her 
without her knowledge. In dressing herself she would 
make thousands of small motions where a few score would 
suffice. I have detected her in fifteen movements of the 
fingers to adjust a part of her clothing, when one calmly 
made motion would have done it. As she would almost 
frantically end each such effort her face'would change to a 
scowl that was hideous.” 

This description will apply to countless men and women 
everywhere who are weak, tired, depleted in nervous power, 
high strung yet totally deprived of Life Electricity. Nor 
can they acquire this much needed power as long as they 
allow their own vitality, weak as it is, to run away from 
them in truant currents. 

What is the remedy? 

Later lessons will deal with it. 

But, regardless of affirmative means of curing such faults, 
every thoughtful person can see at a glance the advantage 
of omitting as many of them as the will power and good 


38 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


judgment are able to master. In the Vassar College case, 
the young woman whose vitality was rapidly running away 
and who would soon have become an anaemic or consump¬ 
tive, was completely cured of lost motions by seeing a snap 
shot taken by the camera of her room-mate at that second 
of time when her face was distorted in a hideous scowl. 
The picture was too true and she was still strong enough 
to realize the necessity of immediate reform. Nothing but 
her good sense was required. She borrowed a book on mag¬ 
netism from her friend, and put into practice one department 
only; that relating to lost activities. She was soon able to 
perform all the thousand small motions of the day without 
loss of action. The electric currents that had run to waste, 
soon became resisted and sent back to the storage batteries 
of the body stronger than when they went forth, and she 
was not only filled with vitality but also became magnetic. 

Omission is a grand teacher. 

Have you automatic motions? 

Do not ask yourself, for you know nothing about it; but 
inquire of some person who is expert enough to detect 
them. 

Do you lose any motions in any of the many activities of 
the day? Do not ask yourself, for you will say that your 
nerves and muscles are always calm, smooth and direct, 
never losing the fraction of any movement. 

Are you easily irritated when trying to do something? 
How about the collar button, or the cuffs, or the shoes, 
or other details that enter into your daily duties? How 
many motions will you make in turning one hundred pages 
of a book? Try it. 

Omission, as has been stated, is a good teacher. Can you 
omit any of these nervous faults? If so, you will gain at 
once what it might require many lessons to accomplish. 


39 


FOURTEENTH LESSON 


“STOMACH ENEMIES’’ 

O PERSON can succeed in building up a vigorous 
\| rpm vitality against the abuse of the organ that supplies 
the nutrition that is needed for one’s very life and 
existence. It is surprising to note the number of persons 
who seek help by curative methods rather than by removing 
the causes of their ill health. They do not stop to think 
that the greatest healer on earth to-day is omission. 

Here is a fair woman seeking to remove blotches from 
the face by remedies that are intended to cleanse and purify 
the skin; all the time she is putting into the blood the bad 
elements out of which alone come the evils that destroy the 
good complexion. You cannot clarify the texture of the 
garment by washing it or even by miracles, when you are 
all the while putting through that garment the foul flood 
of sewerage that is daily introduced into the stomach. 

The brain is built by the nutrition that the stomach fur¬ 
nishes, and it cannot supply something that it does not re¬ 
ceive. The nerves are made of the same nutrition, and they 
are dependent on the diet for their good tone and health. 

Under the closest miscroscopical examination, the brain of 
an insane man, except in case of lesion, is as whole and 
healthy as the brain of a sane man. Indeed when the two 
are examined side by side it is not possible to tell which 
was sane and which not. But the condition of the blood 
of an insane man is quite different from that of one who 
is mentally sound. The derangement then comes from the 
irritation which is brought from the stomach into the brain 
by the circulation of the blood. 

Every day and several times a day the stomach makes 
nutriment for the blood and sends it forth to repair and 
build up the body, the nerves, and all parts of the intricate 
system that is the temple of life. From this nutriment all 





40 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


vitality must have its starting point, for it is the basis of 
life. It is an old saying that a man is what he eats, and 
this is true even in a mental and moral sense. Crime is 
a physical defect, and its cure is largely influenced by a 
radical change of diet. Insanity is being rationally treated 
to-day by many experts through the use of an entirely differ¬ 
ent diet from that which attended the development of the 
calamity. In both classes of cases and in all conditions in 
fact, bad blood irritates the brain and brings into activity 
the powers of evil that would otherwise remain dormant. 
Pure blood never irritates nerve or brain-tissue. 

Every organ plays an important part in the vitality of 
the body. Every organ is a builded engine composed of nu¬ 
triment that has been made in the stomach. The latter 
cannot produce something different from the food that is 
supplied to it. If you make a watch spring out of wood, 
you will have the character of wood and its defects in the 
action of the spring. What you put into the construction of 
any machinery, will determine the value and working abil¬ 
ity of that machinery. 

So the body is just the product of the diet and nothing 
more or less. Brain, nerves, lungs, heart, blood, and each 
and every detail will reflect the food that is eaten. 

The greatest barbarism of to-day is the habit of feeding 
unfit things to the stomach and then doctoring the results, 
instead of turning the process around and doctoring the 
cause. As long as this false method remains in vogue, doc¬ 
tors, diseases and drugs will keep up their fearful increase. 

The claim is made and can be proved a thousand times 
over that ninety per cent of all human ills start with a 
wretchedly bad diet. The mouth is humanity’s most om¬ 
nipotent enemy. Ninety-five persons in every hundred are 
salivating something all the time. If it is not tobacco, gum, 
candy or other tempting cud, it is the end of a pencil, the 
finger nails, or other device to keep the glands at work. 
Being born with a working jaw, this habit controls humanity 


STOMACH ENEMIES 


4i 


all through life, and is the last to lose its vitality on the ap¬ 
proach of death. Because of the mouth’s anxiety to keep 
at work, alcohol, the father of universal crime, is a com¬ 
mon visitor at the gateway of the stomach. 

All the evils that enter the body, pass in review before 
the palate. The taste is the thing, not the value to the 
body. Therefore if these evils could be introduced in the 
gullet below the palate and not be tasted, no person would 
take the slightest interest in them. Good sense would sug¬ 
gest that they be taken, tasted, rolled over in the mouth an 
indefinite number of times, and then be ejected, as all the 
inviting qualities would then be extracted, all the pleasure 
secured, and the enemies would be useless to harm the life 
of the body. 

But the era of self-control is not yet at hand and people 
will go on putting death and disaster into the stomach, 
suffering the consequences, scoffing at better methods, paying 
big bills and dying prematurely. This is poor human na¬ 
ture, and it will so remain as long as the palate is the ruler 
of the race. 

But the man or woman who desires to acquire Life Elec¬ 
tricity must have a general knowledge of the classes of foes 
that injure the vitality through attacks on the stomach and 
ensuing conditions. 

As omission is the greatest teacher of the world, it will 
follow that those who are really ambitious to succeed in 
large measure in this course of training, will do away with 
the principal enemies which will be enumerated and de¬ 
scribed in the next few lessons. 


42 


FIFTEENTH LESSON 


“CLASSES OF ENEMIES” 


B AVING REACHED the most important stage in the 
negative study of the subject, we will proceed to 
place before our students in this lesson a brief list 
of the enemies of the stomach. They are given in this 
work solely from the standpoint of their relation to the de¬ 
velopment of Life Electricity in its largest measure, and 
must not be taken to include the ordinary consideration of 
health. 

There are five classes of stomach enemies which may be 
named as follows: 

i. Non-food elements. 

2. Chemical poisons. 

3. Carbonic acid. 

4. Mineral matter. 

5. Flesh poisons. 

The terms used are those that can be most readily turned 
into a popular account rather than one that is technical. 

It is recommended that they be memorized and retained 
in the mind from time to time, as they furnish guides to 
many means of help in this system of training. 

As they will be given a popular treatment, it should be 
understood at the beginning of this analysis that they in¬ 
clude a number of minor enemies that are placed in the 
above classes regardless of their exact relation to the name 
of the class. 

This part of the study is negative. Its teacher is 
“ OMISSION.” When an enemy is known and found 
out, the intelligent person will give it a wide berth, or else 
destroy it. 




43 




SIXTEENTH LESSON 


“NON FOOD ELEMENTS” 

S N ELEMENT is a chemical form of matter that can¬ 
not be decomposed by any known process of science. 
There are more than seventy such elements in the 
world, and it is believed that they are found in all the 
orbs of the sky, indicating that the universe is built of the 
same material throughout. Animal life and plant life such 
as is useful for food, are made up of fourteen elements. 
Thirteen are not enough, and if a person could not take into 
the system all fourteen elements, he would sooner or later 
become defective and die. 

Of course only a perfectly supplied nutrition can pro¬ 
duce the power on which Life Electricity is founded. A 
defective person is not a candidate for such power. 

Some children are afflicted with the rickets because of 
the lack of all fourteen elements in sufficient quantity and 
due proportions for the growth of the body. Persons of 
all ages suffer in nerves, in mind, in blood, or in organic 
tone because of the deficient supply of these needed parts 
of the diet. 

As has been said it will not do to attempt to live on less 
than the fourteen; thirteen or twelve will bring defects, 
loss of vitality and the breakdown of the machinery of life. 

But when more than fourteen elements are fed daily to 
the human body, and as in many cases sixteen or even 
twenty elements come into the blood, nature rebels. She 
seeks to throw off all excess, and is able to do this to some 
extent; but every ounce of effort that is expended in get¬ 
ting rid of non-food elements, costs a pretty sum in the loss 
of vitality. It is like an engine that runs best when sup¬ 
plied with good fuel, and all its power is employed to 
drive machinery; but that, when clogged by matters that 




44 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


interfere with its activity, loses a great portion of its energy. 

When food contains some element not required to make 
blood and life that foreign matter must be thrown out, and 
much vitality is expended in so doing. 

For this reason every intelligent person should study 
the foods that are taken into the stomach and ascertain 
what are suited to the body, and what contain non-food 
elements in too great an abundance. There are many of 
these elements that are harmless while not being capable 
of furnishing nutrition. But they are in the way and 
must be thrown out before the organs can do their work. 

Then there is a middle class of non-food elements that 
do some harm although they are not direct poisons. The 
third and final class contains actual poisons and they will 
be considered in their place. 

Another law comes into use, and that is the necessity of 
combined elements. There are seventeen forms in which 
these are mixed and made ready for human use. The 
straight unmixed element is not intended for food, and is 
almost always a poison when so employed. 

Instead of wearying the student with the chemistry of 
these propositions, we will in the affirmative part of this 
work furnish a code which will contain all that is needed 
by the body, and add a very liberal margin besides. 


45 


SEVENTEENTH LESSON 


‘CHEMICAL POISONS” 



ANY OF THE ELEMENTS are turned into 
dangers by wrong combinations, or when taken 
alone. Thus iron in a state that is pure is to some 
extent useful as medicine, but much of it, comparatively 
speaking, will destroy the tissue of the lungs. Many cases 
of consumption have been traced to the use of iron as a med¬ 
icine, because it was not organized in plant life and made 
to enter into the combination intended by nature. The 
same is true of oxygen. Some one discovered the fact that 
this element enters into almost ninety per cent of all parts 
of the body and is therefore essential to health and vitality; 
but in its pure state it is a poison. Nature has put it into 
so many forms that it is obtainable in the right combina¬ 
tions and should not be taken as a medicine in its elemen¬ 
tary form. This general law runs through all the food 
formations that are required by the body. 

Most medicines are poisons. 

They set up a fight in the system and arouse to activity 
the functions that have become weakened by a bad diet; 
and thus they add a new source of danger to an already bad 
condition. Of late years the tendency of the medical pro¬ 
fession has been to introduce food-medicines or combina¬ 
tions of materials needed by the body. At the same time, 
gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, mercury, and other elements 
are being given as medicines in more intensified form. 

Both classes of drugs are injurious. When the chemist 
takes the fourteen elements ordained by nature and works 
them into medicines, the chief value has been robbed; for 
no food is really useful to the body unless it has been or¬ 
ganized in plant life and so maintained until the time it 
enters the stomach. The formula of the laboratory reads 






46 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


well and seems the right thing; but the one great principle 
has departed from the food, and that is its plant forma¬ 
tion. Hence any of the food elements may become a 
poison. So may the metals that are served in drugs. 

The study of Life Electricity teaches the avoidance of 
medicines and drugs, except in the acute form of a malady 
when heroic measures are necessary. Science has made 
great progress of late years, and we lift the hat in admira¬ 
tion to the profession of medicine when it is called on to 
deal with acute disease. But it has no part or place in the 
treatment of a chronic malady, and its history even up to 
the present moment is that of abject and shameful failure. 
The reason is plain; chronic maladies depend on the de¬ 
velopment of an excessive vitality and medicines never have 
and never can produce such a result in any person. 

The most potent and common of all forms of chemical 
poisons of the present day are those found in adulterations. 
Here are some facts: 

1. Pure drugs are not easily procurable to-day. The 
spirit of money-making has led the makers of medicines to 
cheapen their cost to themselves by adulterating them. 

2. Fruit syrups taken from four hundred soda water 
fountains and analyzed showed that ninety-eight per cent 
of them are adulterated. 

3. Ice cream taken from places where sold either in soda 
water or in eating houses and restaurants was found to 
be made up of ingredients that were poisonous. 

4. Many of the special soft drinks sold at soda fountains 
were also found to be adulterated; some with drugs that 
bring on the vicious habits that cannot be shaken off when 
once fastened on the nerves and blood. Many cocaine 
fiends, to mention one class, have had their beginning of 
slavery in the summer drinks so widely advertised. Thus 
it is seen that the drug store and drinking fountains are 
the source of greatest danger to the health and vitality of 
the public. It can be set down as a fixed rule that no 


CHEMICAL POISONS 


47 


student of Life Electricity can make progress in this work 
and patronize any source of danger. 

5. Almost all the so-called pure liquors are adulterated; 
and there is no exception to this rule as far as grade or 
brand is concerned. There are more than one hundred 
different kinds of poisons found to-day in the beers now 
for sale to the public. The whiskey that is advertised as 
most wholesome is not pure; and the beers that are said to 
be recommended by doctors who hold stock in the brewer¬ 
ies, are poisonous; their use leading to death by Bright’s 
disease. In reply to a challenge issued by a defender of 
beer, twenty cases of death from this malady were inves¬ 
tigated, and in nineteen of them the victims were found to 
have been users of beer in great quantities; and the other 
death was traceable to a bad diet. 

6. All the patent medicines offered in advertisements are 
found to contain materials that weaken the vitality and 
make the development of Life Electricity an impossibility. 
More than this they are, some of them, largely made up 
of alcohol and are doing a fearful work in making drunk¬ 
ards. They should all be avoided. In fact no student of 
Life Electricity is allowed to use medicine in any form, un¬ 
less suffering from an acute attack of disease. 

7. Practically all the canned fruits, meats', and other 
goods on sale in the stores are made non-changeable by the 
use of chemicals. This applies generally to bottled goods 
of every kind and to those that are in cans. It is difficult 
to make them good “ keepers ” unless they are “ doctored,” 
and so they are given a preservative for this purpose. The 
amount of added poison is small, but the continued use of 
it will break down the liver, the stomach, the intestines, 
and other organs. It is said by some authorities that the 
great frequency to-day of appendicitis is due to these al¬ 
most harmless chemical poisons which are added to the 
canned and bottled goods on sale in the stores. An at¬ 
tempt to check the fearful ravages of this wholesale poison- 


48 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


ing of the public is met by the cry that the nation is passing 
through an era of moral hysteria; and at the same time the 
endless processions of hearses are carrying the victims to 
untimely graves. 

8. Breakfast foods and other articles that are likely to 
get wormy, are often adulterated with preservatives to 
prevent loss. 

9. For many years the use of chemical poisons to keep 
milk from souring was on the increase; and it was not 
until nearly one million babies had died from this kind of 
slow poisoning that the public woke up to the fact. Who 
are the murderers? Are the farmers who were taught that 
a small amount of poison was not fatal, or the middle men 
who encouraged such use, or the public that takes but little 
interest in any movement to save life except when some 
great disaster overwhelms them? Business interests, which 
is another way of describing the practice of making money 
by adulterations, are too much mixed up with politics to be 
held responsible for the continual murdering of innocent 
people by the use of chemical poisons. Milk is so necessary 
an article of food that it is more watched than any other 
one; and we are glad to say that at the present time not 
more than eight per cent of the milk supply of the nation 
is now being adulterated with preservatives, which are slow 
but sure poisons. 

10. Fresh meats, particularly beef, is subjected to the 
same doctoring; being almost embalmed like a human corpse 
in order to hold back decay. As the beef trust defies both 
the public and the government in its illegal combination, 
so it successfully makes use of chemical poisons to preserve 
its meat for an indefinite length of time. 

11. Of all the wicked attempts to make money out of a 
cheap poison, the employment of alum in baking powders 
and in self-rising flours and other foods, is the most de¬ 
testable. Concerns that know that alum will do wonders 
in raising flour, and in making a poor product light in bak- 


CHEMICAL POISONS 


<9 


ing, proceed to advertise the special purity of their goods; 
and the public believe what they see in advertisements. 
The safest course to pursue is to avoid all foods that are 
raised by any kind of baking powder, or made from self¬ 
rising flour or product of any kind. 

Whichever way you turn, there are poisons awaiting you. 

In this age of greed and politics, when pure food legisla¬ 
tion is blocked by lawmakers who are in the pay of cor¬ 
porate interests, it is best to come down to the simple habits 
of eating that have always marked the career of the person 
who has achieved great longevity. It is also the best to 
make sure that milk and wheat flour are kept wholly free 
from adulterations. The man who would kill human be¬ 
ings by slow degrees in order to make money, is a deliberate 
murderer; and what right has that man to escape who 
made wheat flour products by mixing ground lime and 
alum with an equal quantity of flour and sold it as an 
especially fine grade? The alum helped the whole concoc¬ 
tion to make light bread; but suffering and death followed 
in the wake of its use, and the adulterator bought his im¬ 
munity by controlling the lawmakers that might have 
stopped him. 

It is an agreed fact that vitality is at a lower ebb to-day 
than ever before in the history of the world; and also that 
adulterations and preservatives are more employed than 
ever before. 

All poisons, all irritants, all things that are foreign to 
the construction of the human body, lessen its life and vi¬ 
tality and make it impossible to acquire vigor and energy; 
and for this reason it is necessary that those who wish to 
make progress in this course of instruction should avoid all 
chemical poisons in food and drink. 


50 


EIGHTEENTH LESSON 


‘ CARBONIC ACID’ 


S NLY LAST YEAR one of the greatest of American 
physicians declared that he believed that ninety-eight 

_per cent of all diseases were due to the presence of 

carbonic acid in the human system. He enumerated mal¬ 
ady after malady and showed the relation between its de¬ 
velopment and the influence of this deadly compound. 
What is carbonic acid? 

In the first place it is the most common of deadly 
poisons. It is also the most deadly of all poisons that are 
well known. It further bears the distinction of killing 
more quickly than any other poison. 

Two of its characteristics are its lack of odor and its 
sudden grasp on life without the slightest warning. Com¬ 
bined with hydrogen it makes the common fire damp which 
has sent many a brave miner to his death, and is to-day the 
most feared of all the enemies under ground. 

It is Composed of one part of carbon and two parts of 
oxygen in its bulk; but by weight it holds twelve parts of 
carbon and thirty-two parts of oxygen. Both these ele¬ 
ments are necessary in the food life of man; yet being in 
wrong combinations they are deadly enemies. 

The atmosphere contains about one part of this poison in 
two thousand five hundred parts of air; very feeble pro¬ 
portion. But it has a tendency to fall to the ground and 
in low places; and when it is present in the proportion of 
four parts in a hundred of air, it is a fatal poison. When 
it appears in still greater proportion it is of course quicker 
in its effects and leaves no hope for aid or recovery. As it 
falls to the ground, it is sometimes found in wells that are 
sunk in marshes and lowlands. In a recent case a man 
descended into a well in sight of his family, and was silent, 




CARBONIC ACID 


5i 


He replied to no call. They found him dead, and his de¬ 
mise had been instantaneous. Thousands of such cases are 
known. The gas of sewers is also due to the presence of 
this same poison. Not long ago a young man descended 
through a manhole into a sewer only a few feet from the 
ground. Not coming back in a few minutes, his com¬ 
panion went after him. As he did not return, a third man 
started to enter the sewer, but was restrained by the fourth. 
The first two had been killed in a second of time. 

Carbonic acid is also thrown off from the lungs in the 
act of respiration. It is the death in the blood that the 
oxygen seizes and sends forth out of the body. It is to get 
rid of this greatest of all enemies that the lungs are estab¬ 
lished and pure air made necessary for the protection of 
life. The beating of the heart keeps the blood circulating, 
and every drop of this fluid is brought into the lungs where 
fresh air delivers over its oxygen, which unites with the 
poisons and turns them into carbonic acid. This then es¬ 
capes into the room or out of doors, where it is diffused and 
lost. 

In a sleeping apartment which is small in size, the person 
who is in bed is compelled to inhale over and over again 
the carbonic acid that has been thrown from the lungs. 
If there are two or more persons in the same room, the air 
becomes still more foul. At length when three parts in 
a hundred of the air are present, a deadly feeling in the 
head seizes the person and this can be relieved only by 
fresh air. In halls, churches and other places where peo¬ 
ple gather, if there are only two parts in a hundred, there 
is sickness at the head and a feeling of faintness. Old per¬ 
sons are often victims of paralysis when they are allowed 
to remain in a place where there is ever two per cent of 
carbonic acid in the air. All persons who are subject to 
heart disease or weakness of that organ, are liable to a sud¬ 
den attack which may prove fatal. 




52 


NINETEENTH LESSON 


‘ CARBONIC ACID IN FOODS” 


^^^)HE DIFFERENCE between chemical poisons 
mlwB P^ acec ^ i n f°°ds and drinks by the deliberate act of 
man with intent to make money at the expense of the 
health and life of human beings, and the poison that arises 
from a natural process of change, is one largely of intent and 
of accident as well. There are two very plain laws that ap¬ 
ply to the latter condition, and we will state them at this 
time: 

1. Everything that is fit for the food of man is wholly 
free from carbonic acid. 

2 . When food or drink becomes unfit for use it passes 
through a change which generates carbonic acid. 

When the poisons of the body are thrown off through 
the circulation of the blood, they are turned into carbonic 
acid. 

Now what seems strange is the fact that this most dan¬ 
gerous of all poisons, should be regarded as safe to intro¬ 
duce into the system in small quantities. An axe that will 
cut a man’s head off at one blow is a merciful instrument 
compared with one that slowly hacks it to pieces. Yet 
carbonic acid is taken deliberately into the stomach every 
day and is not repudiated because it does not cause imme¬ 
diate illness or death. We find authorities stating the gen¬ 
eral fact that this poison when entering the lungs is a 
deadly enemy; yet when taken into the stomach it is only 
a mild form of poisoning which the blood will throw off if 
not in too great a quantity. The doctor who believed that 
the prevalence of carbonic acid in the body was its most 
serious enemy and who traced nearly all maladies to this 
presence, was nearer right than the general public who be- 




CARBONIC ACID IN FOODS 


53 


lieve that a little poison taken day by day into the blood 
can be thrown off. 

Observation has proved that carbonic acid leaves a trail 
of injury in its course through the body. It is decidedly 
harmful to the membranes, and there almost all diseases 
have their rise. Every membrane is covered with a health¬ 
ful fluid or mucus, which is as necessary to its health as is 
lubricating oil to the easy running of wheels on a wagon. 
Rheumatism has been keeping pace with the presence of car¬ 
bonic acid in the blood; and when this poison reaches the 
joints they suffer excruciating pain because of the lack of 
mucus. The knee joints may be taken as a clear example 
of this fact. Every time a step is taken the membranes 
about the knee must rub on each other, and the mucus there 
must be abundant in order to prevent dryness and conse¬ 
quent torture. If a person allows carbonic acid to deprive 
the knees of their mucus, the membranes and all parts 
will be harsh and dry, and every movement will give rise to 
great pain. 

The same is true of the stomach and the alimentary canal 
which is one long membrane. Its health and the safety of 
the body depend on the continual presence of mucus on its 
entire surface. Yet carbonic acid will cut off all the mucus 
and leave the membrane unfit to carry on its work. Gas¬ 
tritis and appendicitis are natural and logical results of 
this error of diet. 

A sick and catarrhal stomach is often filled with a morbid 
mucus, due to the use of stimulants. When carbonic acid 
drinks are taken to remedy this evil, they cut off and clean 
out the diseased mucus, leaving the surface of the stomach 
and canal dry and incapable of carrying on the process 
of digestion. 

How can any person who will wantonly abuse the 
stomach by such uses, and who will then flood it with a 
poison, expect to acquire vitality through exercises? 

A woman recently wrote to us, after learning of our ex- 


54 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


periments in the past thirty years, and asked to be in¬ 
structed in exercises that would be sure to develop Life 
Electricity. 

Exercises are powerless in the presence of such an enemy. 
They must be brought into use after the greater teacher, 
omission, has been given opportunity to clear the way of 
its debris. 

In other words, omit carbonic acid as a part of the diet. 

Do you know that this poison is present in all charged 
waters, in all soda waters, in all live drinks of the soft 
kind, in all beer and fermented drinks, in all cake, bread, 
baking powder cookery, self-rising flour products, yeast 
bread, and fermenting things? • 

Do you know what carbonic acid is what causes colic in 
babies, and is due to a faulty diet or else to carelessness in 
feeding? 

Do you know that when your bowels roll in tones of 
distant thunder, there is this poison at work there doing 
damage ? 

Do you know that when you eructate you are raising car¬ 
bonic acid from the stomach; that when you have fullness 
at that organ you are puffed up with flatulence; that when 
there is distress in the abdomen it is due to the same poison; 
and that gastritis and indigestion are caused in the same 
way? 

Sometimes you willingly put this poison into your 
stomach, but often you put in the things that make it, and 
do not intend or wish to generate the acid. 

Do you know that carbon is the one greatest of all ele¬ 
ments that furnishes power to the brain, nerves and muscles 
and is the fuel of life; but that it burns itself into a poison 
by its very energy? You need oxygen because you must 
have something that will keep changes always going on. 
You need hydrogen because there must be a sea of fluid in 
which all changes occur. You need nitrogen in order to 
weave the tissue of flesh. Thus with the woven material, 


CARBONIC ACID IN FOODS 


55 


the medium of action and the power to cause change you 
make use of the first three elements in human life. The 
fourth is carbon, the fuel. 

It is the one real food. 

When carbon burns in the body the individual lives and 
thinks and acts. But when it is burned, the new prod¬ 
uct must be thrown out at once, for it is a source of 
danger if allowed to remain. This act of disposing of it 
is controlled by the oxygen in the lungs; and the thing 
thrown out is carbonic acid. 

As carbonic acid is present in this acid, you can see in 
what way a very valuable element becomes the most deadly 
enemy. It certainly is strange, but it is true. 

Now we come to something stranger. As carbon, a val¬ 
uable and powerful food element, when changed is a 
dreaded enemy, so this same carbon when it comes in con¬ 
tact with other carbon differently combined, and it is 
changed by digestion, becomes quickly an enemy. In the 
stomach carbon and carbon make just the same trouble that 
carbon and oxygen make. 

What are these carbons? 

Sugar is a carbon. 

Butter is a carbon. 

Cream is a carbon. 

These three things which are so useful in cooking are al¬ 
most pure carbon; as nearly complete as it is possible to 
find any combined substances. When they are taken sep¬ 
arately into the stomach in connection with other foods, 
they are a help to their digestion in most instances. But 
they fight each other. As oxygen is always present, it per¬ 
verts any two carbons into the deadly poison known as 
carbonic acid. Thus if you eat sugar and butter, you will 
set up ferment in the stomach and alimentary canal and 
generate gas, flatulence, or even colic, all due to carbonic 
acid. 

The reason for this is that two carbons coming together 


56 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


in the stomach develop carbonic acid, owing to the ac¬ 
tion of oxygen on them in a perverted manner. 

Butter and cream are very nearly alike and do not enter 
into the change to a great extent; but if you eat what is 
known as hard sauce, composed of butter and sugar, you 
will find the results in a very decided way; but you will 
not know the cause of so much gas or flatulence. If you 
take cream and sugar you will also find the same results. 
Milk with its ordinary proportion of cream will use up a 
small proportion of sugar and not lead to ferment; but 
straight cream and sugar as in ice cream will cause this 
poison. Milk and eggs take sugar more readily and make 
a better ice cream, or frozen custard many be used as a 
substitute. 

Gelatine is almost wholly indigestible. 

A strange accident happened when a clergyman, the hus¬ 
band of a woman who prided herself on her fine ices, ate 
freely of an ice cream made under her direction in which 
smoothness was sought by the use of gelatine; he arose from 
the table and fell dead from acute indigestion. The widow, 
a few months afterwards, entertaining a friend, and having 
no suspicion of the cause of her husband’s death, had simi¬ 
lar gelatine ice cream served, and the friend arose from 
the table and fell dead from acute indigestion. 

Gelatine in ice cream, even the so-called absolutely pure 
gelatine, has sent many a man, woman and child to the 
grave by the route of acute indigestion, the highway now 
most frequently traveled in these times because of the use 
of so many non-food elements in cooking, so much chemical 
poisoning and so much carbonic acid as the result of modern 
barbarism. 

The student of Life Electricity must constantly consult 
his greatest teacher, omission. 


57 


TWENTIETH LESSON 


“MINERAL MATTER” 


URING the growing period of youth the body re¬ 
quires mineral matter for the purpose of making 
the bones. The. proportion that is then necessary is 
very much greater than that which is required after the 
growing period has ceased. Nature furnishes the supply 
needed for that time, and does not lessen it in after years. 
The result is a calcareous tendency in the blood and flesh 
of every adult person. The proportion demanded in youth 
is about ten times that which should be taken into the body 
when growth has stopped. 

Vitality is electrical in its character, whether the kind of 
electricity is the same as that employed in the mechanical 
world or not. The constant poise of acids.and alkali in 
the blood is directly the primary cause of the spark of life. 
The poise is maintained only when there is a full and free 
flow of all the fluids of the system, of which the blood is 
the first and greatest. The least hindrance to this flow at 
once lowers the vital tone and causes weariness in the 
nerves and stagnation in all the avenues of the body. 

If you take a kettle in which hard water has been kept, 
or in which it has been poured out and in for a long time, 
you will find the inside surface of it covered with a deposit 
of lime or other mineral. Tubular boilers, through which 
many tubes run, are disabled by the same kind of deposits. 
In time they would be wholly clogged. 

When there is an excess of mineral matter in the blood 
as it courses many times a day through the veins and arter¬ 
ies and all through the fine cellular tissue of the flesh and 
organs, some of it is sure to cling and remain on the inner 
surface of myriad parts. Many of the troubles that arise 





58 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


in the heart are due to this clogging of the fine passages in 
its construction; and the brain has been rendered almost 
osseous in portions by the same cause. 

It is one of the peculiarities of old age that the blood 
vessels and cellular structure of the brain become hardened 
by such deposits. In its first stages the organ is known as 
having lost its flexibility. Thinking deeply is difficult. 
The throbbing and vibration of the mass during thought 
are almost impossible. Old people then are said to have 
acquired fixed ideas which no argument can change, and no 
experience can shake. 

All foods and liquids, except fruits and distilled water, 
contain carbonate and phosphate of lime and other calca¬ 
reous salts, which develop bones; and, by a continuous ac¬ 
tion, carry the tendency to every part of the body. When 
the bones become hardened, the body reaches its limit of 
growth. If a young person should eat such food and drink 
such water as grown persons ought to have, the bones 
would not harden for many years, if at all; but would keep 
on growing and the result would be that giants would oc¬ 
cupy the earth. It is a rule of nature that the sooner the 
bones harden the smaller will be the grown person. 

It is a peculiar law. 

But it works in a fixed way at the other extreme of life; 
for old age never begins until the osseous or mineral 
tendency has been carried into the veins and arteries and 
through all the tissue of the flesh and organs. 

As long as the bones can be kept growing, the body will 
be gaining in size; when they harden, then growth ceases and 
the body fills out and does not add materially to its height. 

While this early process is going on the veins, the arter¬ 
ies, the brain and the heart are free from the deposits of 
mineral matter; but as soon as growth ceases, then the sur¬ 
plus of such matter, not being used for the structure of the 
bones, is kept in circulation in the blood and sooner or later 
clings to every surface over which it passes; sometimes form- 


MINERAL MATTER 


59 


ing lumps in special parts known as gall stones, stones of the 
bladder, kidneys and other organs. 

As soon as this tendency sets in then age begins, no matter 
how old or how young the person may be. 

Experiments made on animals prove the working of the 
same law. Hard drinking water and food that is calcu¬ 
lated to carry earth salts into the system, will hurry on the 
age and maturity of all animals; while the withdrawal of 
such water and foods after growth has been established will 
increase the life of an animal. The lessening of such water 
and foods during the growing period will make the body 
grow larger, all other things being equal; as it will take 
longer to harden the bones, and they keep on growing until 
they get hard. 

Debility begins in any organ when old age minerals 
abound in it. 

Vitality lessens very seriously from the same cause. 

The failing of the sense of hearing is easily traced to 
this cause, as is the loss of youthful vision; two of the signs 
of decrepitude coming on. Wrinkles in the face and hands 
are due to the same influence as may be proved by a close 
study of the physiological changes that take place in order 
to produce these signs of age. 

No person wants to become a wreck at any time of life, 
and the fear of old age is due chiefly to the weakness and 
helplessness that attend it. 

Life Electricity teaches that there is a way to prevent the 
coming on of decrepitude and feebleness in extreme age; 
and, instead of the helpless wreck so often seen, there 
should be a graceful and vital advance of years without loss 
of the faculties. People should reach the age of one hun¬ 
dred easily and be able to take care of themselves without 
becoming burdens to others about them. 

Mineral matter enters the body through the drinking of 
hard water, of mineral waters, of earthy meats, and of food 
that is over-charged with carbonate and phospate of lime. 


6o 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


The method of prevention is by consulting the great 
teacher, omission; that is, learn what to omit in the 
diet of each day. To aid this part of the work, there will 
also be found a great division of this course of study in 
which affirmative helps may be had, for omission is only 
the negative side of the instruction. 

In addition to the foods and drinks that enter the 
stomach, care should be taken to avoid the extremes of in¬ 
activity and excessive activity. 

The sedentary person feels the bones, the joints and the 
muscles getting stiff earlier in life than the individual who 
is reasonably active, and who is out of doors much of the 
time. 

On the other hand men and women who work too hard 
will, as a rule, dry up the blood and so be deprived of one 
of the means of lessening the accumulation of mineral de¬ 
posits in the system. 

The code of eating which appears in the affirmative part 
of this course will show the way to keep these enemies out 
of the body. 


6i 


TWENTY-FIRST LESSON 


“FLESH SALTS 



EXT TO HARD WATER the flesh of animal life 
abounds in minerals that are known as animal salts, 
and which clog the veins, arteries, blood vessels, and 
all passages of the body, bringing on old age Conditions of 
the brain, heart and other organs. This interference with 
the functional processes always induces a low state of vital¬ 
ity and makes the development of Life Electricity an im¬ 
possibility. 

Every part of a living organism is a mass of poisons, for 
this condition is necessary in the very act of living. 

The purest food that enters the stomach has a marked 
duty to perform in establishing the means whereby life 
may be supported. It must give up its own existence and 
be sent through a process of breaking up in order that 
power to think, to feel and to move may be transferred to 
the organism. It is all the while dying; for energy or even 
the slightest expression of life cannot follow except as nutri¬ 
tion dies in the body. 

It is a vital principle of nature that death of the tissue 
must constantly occur as life is produced. This death is 
taking place in every portion of the body, in the brain, in 
the heart, in the lungs, in the nervous structure, in the 
blood, and wherever there is any form of living existence. 
The doctor who said that life was living death, was right. 

It costs effort and energy to throw off the immense 
amount of dead matter that accumulates daily in the sys¬ 
tem. Flesh at its best is only a reservoir of living death, 
even if putrid changes have not occurred. 

An animal that dies soon putrefies. 

An animal that lives is always on the verge of putrefac¬ 
tion. 





62 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


There is no human being so well but he is at the very 
threshold of mortifying; and it takes but a slight cause to 
bring on cholera morbus, peritonitis, gangrene, blood poi¬ 
soning and the many dangers that are allied to putrefaction 
of the flesh. This is due to the fact that animal life is 
alaways on the verge of decay, even in its most perfect 
health. 

The blood that is the essential part of meat is only a 
storehouse of nutrition interchanging with conditions that 
invite rottenness. When all the blood is taken away there 
is nothing left but the white tissue which has but little food 
value. Thus between the two there is nothing left, nothing 
to be chosen to support human life. The tissue must be 
eaten, or else the blood. 

All that is sought in animal food is albumin; yet the 
full grown ox contains but six ounces of albumin, although 
he may weigh more than half a ton. It is for this reason 
that so many investigators have reported that an egg con¬ 
tains more nutritive value than five pounds of beef. But 
the egg is not a part of the living changes in the organism. 

Even if the flesh were as valuable for food as the egg, 
the former could not be accepted as free from poisons and 
•accumulated mineral matter, w'hile the egg is wholly sepa¬ 
rated from the process known as metabolism, which is the 
source of the dangers that make meat unsafe as food. 
Metabolism is a biological term used to describe the break¬ 
down of matter in the blood and tissue. It changes nutri¬ 
tion' into colorless corpuscles after it has been used in 
some function; it elaborates the digestive ferments through¬ 
out the flesh and blood; it breaks up the proteids into urea 
and other poisons; and prepares dead protoplasm for excre¬ 
tion in perspiration, respiration or other channels. All these 
changes are occurring throughout every particle of flesh all 
the time; and as long as life remains such breakdown is a 
part of it. Fresh meat therefore is loaded with urea, dead 


FLESH SALTS 63 

protoplasm, poisonous colorless corpuscles, and deorganized 
proteids or defunct cells. 

That is what you have to eat if you eat meat. 

If you preserve it you lock up in its structure all these of¬ 
fenses. Old or new, salt or fresh, it never loses its poisons 
as long as it exists in any form. 

There are but two exceptions to metabolism; and they 
are: 

1. Eggs. 

2. Milk. 

Eggs are the purest parts of the food eaten by poultry and 
have not had any part in the operations of life within the 
fowl; therefore they cannot contain any of the flesh poisons. 

Milk is the first stage of nutrition after digestion and be¬ 
fore it is turned into blood. It is wholly exempt from the 
breakdown of life in the body and cannot therefore be 
classed as animal food. 

The rule to be observed in the study of Life Electricity 
is this: 

If the product of animal life has entered into the activities 
of that existence, then it is animal in its nature and contains 
the dangers that come from meat eating. 

As the egg is wholly separated from the activities of the 
organism in which it is formed, and as milk is merely food 
changed into a white fluid in advance of its being turned 
into blood, neither eggs nor milk can be classed as flesh, or 
as products of animal life. 


6 4 


TWENTY-SECOND LESSON. 


“FLESH POISONS” 


^T^i^ERY MANY of the ills of life are due directly to the 
use of meats and animal products, owing to the ex- 
cess of poisons that are contained in them. It seems 
strange that man has not yet learned that his own body, 
like that of the beasts, is in a state of constant struggle to 
get rid of the urea and other dangers that are always being 
generated there in the processes of life. He has all the 
putrid and effete matter he should carry. Why, then, add 
to these the poisons that are contained in the flesh of other 
beings? Instead of bringing new and pure nutrition to feed 
him, flesh merely brings the broken-down condition of other 
existence to add to his own troubles. 

A few general facts should be made known at this time. 

Urea is the basis of rheumatism, gout, and kindred mal¬ 
adies. The breakdown of momentary life in the human 
body is constantly making urea which circulates in the 
blood. The same poison is also in fresh and all other kinds 
of meat. Man finds it very difficult to drive out or throw 
off each day the urea that his own body generates. But 
when this is added to by urea that is present in very large 
quantites in meat, he has a still greater problem to solve. 

Urea is the basis of urine, but does not as a rule leave 
the body in that form, as nature throws much of it out by 
the lungs and pores. Urine removes a small part only. 

One hundred cans of ready made soups such as are found 
in stores to-day, were selected at random and subjected to 
analysis. At the same time urine from healthy animals and 
men was likewise analyzed; and it was found that both 
the canned soups and the urine were charged with a high 
proportion of urea, and that one might be substituted for 
the other in most part as far as nutritive qualities were con- 




FLESH POISONS 


65 


cerned. It is folly to expect health from such a source. 
On the contrary the body is given an excess of flesh salts 
and old age mineral matter by the use of either soups or 
solid meat, for these contain the breakdown of animal organ¬ 
isms. 

In countries where meat is not eaten, such diseases as 
rheumatism, appendicitis, the grip and like maladies are 
wholly unknown. 

Nothing will more quickly break up the blood than the 
use of meat when there is the least inclination to such a 
change. 

The complexion is almost entirely dependent on the ab¬ 
sence of animal poisons. One of the most famous of living 
women, when asked to what she ascribed her wonderfully 
clear complexion, replied: “ I have not taken any meat of 

any kind for many years. I use eggs freely and drink milk 
slowly at every meal. I am not stout, nor am I thin, but in 
an average Condition as to weight.” 

The eyesight fails much faster when meat is a part of the 
diet than otherwise. So well known a man as Chauncey 
Depew has said many times that he never knew what good 
health was until he abandoned meat; and he was a broken- 
down invalid when he took this step late in life. To him 
the most remarkable result from the abandonment of flesh 
was the return to him of a clear optic nerve; what he 
often refers to as his “ clarified vision.” A great am¬ 
bassador representing one of the most powerful of foreign 
governments at Washington, says: “ I have found out at 
last the way to great vitality and perfect health. It was 
discovered when I stopped using meats. For a few weeks 
I could not agree that the change was a good one, but in 
time I found its benefits, as it takes time to alter the nature 
of the body. Now my ills have entirely gone, and I enjoy 
the best of health. I sincerely believe that I can live in 
the full possession of my faculties for more than five score 
years.” 


66 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


The trouble with the disusing of animal foods is in the 
lack of knowledge as to what should be supplied as substi¬ 
tutes. Most people are caught up by the silly fads in vogue 
and run into anaemia very soon after abandoning meat, 
with the result that they go back to meat again never to be 
led from it. 

Do you know what a fad is ? 

It is based upon a truth, and a powerful truth at that, 
and at a time when humanity is suffering from the need of 
a revolution in its dietary habits. The thing that is wrong 
is known and the general disasters to the health of the peo¬ 
ple are well known. These two facts are proved because 
they are easily provable. 

The public mind is prepared for the revolution, when 
some hairbrained person comes along and organizes a fol¬ 
lowing. Others join because they are open to conviction as 
to the two great truths. But the plan of living that is 
offered is wholly amiss. It is tried and it fails. The 
faddists cling to it because they know a change is neces¬ 
sary, and they continually run down in health, and soon 
become a sad sight to look upon. 

Now as an illustration of this proposition, we will cite the 
two truths regarding the use of meat. 

1. It is easily proved that meat eating is injurious to 
the vitality and stands in the way of the acquisition of buoy¬ 
ant health. 

2 . It is easily proved that the diet of the race should be 
selected from non-flesh foods. 

But the mistake is made by supposing that all non-flesh 
foods are good because they are non-animal. This led to the 
use of nuts, especially peanuts, and vegetables because the 
latter were named after the vegetable kingdom. As a mat¬ 
ter of fact, peanuts are wholly indigestible, and other nuts 
may or may not be, depending on the manner in which 
they are prepared and used. All oily nuts will ruin the 
blood. We have seen many of the foods prepared from 


FLESH POISONS 


67 


nuts, and have been surprised by the rancid condition in 
which they were found. 

The nut fad has done more to turn people back to a meat 
habit than any other one cause. We know whereof we 
speak as we have millions of followers throughout the world 
and in their ranks are thousands of disinterested men of 
great ability, all of whom stand ready to assist in securing 
the facts without partiality to any theory. 

Then came the vegetable fad. 

Most vegetables are weakening to the stomach and gen¬ 
eral system, and lead to violent attacks of neuralgia. We 
have cured thousands of such cases by swinging victims off 
such a diet. A few nuts, and a few vegetables, each in 
place and due proportion, will prove helpful; but not the 
wholesale shifting to an exclusive class. 

The raw food fad came next. 

It assumed to show the way to health by eating grains 
and vegetables uncooked. Anaemia quickly followed every 
such method. If the human teeth can grind the cereals 
into a grist mill fineness, then they will suffice in part; but 
as the human teeth as now constituted are unable to perform 
the duties of a grist mill, the day has not yet arrived when 
whole grains can be eaten by mankind. Vegetables con¬ 
tain nitrogenous structures that cannot be digested until 
great heat has disintegrated or broken them up; hence 
they are not the ideal food for our race. 

All meat eating must be abandoned in the search for 
Life Electricity and buoyant vitality. But there must 
stand ready at all times a full list of foods to be used as 
substitutes for meat; and such a list has never before been 
offered to the public. It is part of the duty of this course 
of training to make the change immediately and permanently 
perfect based on experience now abundantly enlisted in this 
great cause. 


68 


TWENTY-THIRD LESSON 


“ENEMIES OF THE LUNGS” 


» IFE ORIGINATES in the act of breathing. It 
is a question whether the child has life of its own 
prior to that moment when, coming into the at¬ 
mosphere, its chest expands and draws into its chamber 
the first vital breath of its existence. After that moment 
it continues to breathe until that other moment when, at 
the end of its span, the lungs cease their activity. To 
stop breathing is to stop living. This is sure. 

It seems strange that this should be so unless there is 
life in the act of respiration. All writers on the subject 
have ascribed the breath of life to the breath of the lungs. 
There are countless statements made in works of the 
highest learning during the past three thousand years to 
the effect that the spirit enters the body with the breath 
and so departs. 

It is however a clearly proved fact that the degree of 
life in the body is always measured by the range of res¬ 
piration. This cannot be doubted. 

A person of low vitality has a small range of respiration; 
and a person of small range of respiration has low vitality. 
When life is almost gone, the breathing is very feeble. 
In the vigor of buoyant life a person has deep, full and 
strong respirations. 

Natural health as distinguished from artificial increase 
of respiration can be ascertained by the place of action in the 
lungs; for true vitality invites the lowest possible parts of 
the chest in the movement; while a mere will-power vitality 
employs the upper zone of the chest. When a strong man 
or woman leaves to nature the function of breathing, the 
latter becomes deep-seated and so remains until weakness 
comes on and sickness follows. 





ENEMIES OF THE LUNGS 69 

From these brief laws we are enabled to learn four great 
facts in human vitality: 

1. The deeper the respiration, the greater is the life 
within the body. 

2. The shallower the respiration, the less is the life in 
the body. 

3. The lower down in the chest the action of breathing 
is located, the more natural and permanent is the vitality. 

4. The higher up in the chest the action of breathing is 
located, the more cultivated and less permanent is the vi¬ 
tality. 

All persons in the act of dying respire with the upper 
chest, unless in consumption there is no portion of the lungs 
remaining there, in which case the breathing may seem to 
come from near the stomach. But this is the final struggle 
of nature to hold in the spirit. 

People do not regard the lungs with the importance that 
should be attached to the zone out of which life is created, 
and through which it is given transit to the heart, the mind 
and the soul. The air abounds in glame and it is only 
through the air that the vitality of the sun, the light and 
the wealth of growing nature can be brought into the 
existence of a human being. 

You can devote yourself to the most perfect diet, and to 
the greatest hygienic systems on earth; but if you neglect 
to acquire a full range of respiration, all else will go to 
naught. 

Therefore whatever is an enemy to the lungs is an enemy 
to all efforts to attain the highest goal of physical being, 
which is Life Electricity. 

In food there are fourteen elements, of which four make^ 
protoplasm or the foundation of the blood out of which 
the entire body is built. The other ten elements build the 
extras of the body, such as the nails, skin, hair, bones and 
other parts. The four elements that compose protoplasm 
are ogygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon. The last 


70 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


named is the fuel of the chemical fires that abound in the 
body. Hydrogen furnishes the sea or medium for the 
transit of all activities. Oxygen and nitrogen are one- 
half of protoplasm in numbers of its parts, but nearly all 
of it in actual bulk. Anything that is a needed element 
in the body is part of its food. 

The air therefore furnishes half at least of all the food 
of the body. As life cannot be maintained in the absence 
of any one element in the whole list, so air is not enough, 
but it is a great deal. You can live for days without water 
and for weeks without eating solid or liquid food; but you 
can not live five minutes without air. 

The importance of this supply and the vital relationship 
of the lungs to existence, should be given all the consider¬ 
ation to which such things are entitled. It is time to begin 
to study them aright. First, all the enemies of the lungs 
should be fought down and removed, so they cannot do 
harm. These enemies will be stated as briefly as possible, 
and will include only those harmful agencies that are at 
the present day most opposed to Life Electricity. There 
are five such enemies: 

1. Carbon poisons. 

2. Closed air. 

3. Dust. 

4. Smoke. 

5. Gasoline. 


7i 


TWENTY-FOURTH LESSON 


“CARBON POISONS’’ 


§ UDGED by its great roll of victims the dead carbon 
in nature, whether in the body of some living or¬ 
ganism or free in the atmosphere, is the most-to-be- 
dreaded of all foes. It slays quickly and it slays without 
mercy. Its work is done stealthily but steadily, for it 
numbers every year many thousands in its black list. 

When it does not kill outright it slowly poisons. 

In the eighteenth lesson this matter has been discussed in 
the relation of carbonic acid to the vitality, and that lesson 
should be reviewed at this stage of your progress. 

The same name can be applied to the dead breath that 
passes from the lungs, which is sometimes called carbon 
dioxid. It is a carbon poison. To know what it is, make 
a few experiments. It is well known that fire will not 
burn in an unwholesome air. The chemical heat of the 
body must be supported by the same purity of air that sus¬ 
tains the outward fire. Both burn carbon; one in fuel and 
the other in food. Take a long drinking glass, place your 
hand over the top, inhale deeply, then slowly exhale the 
full breath into the glass under the hand to hold it in the 
receptacle. Light a match, and note how freely it burns 
in the air; but dip the lighted match into the glass Con¬ 
taining your breath and note how quickly it will go out. 
Wherever fire goes out, there human life will go out. 

Take any new born rose, fresh from the plant, or still 
resting in its place on the bush, and exhale air from your 
lungs on its petals; something has blighted the fair tex¬ 
ture of the beautiful gifts of the garden. 

Let a cat draw from the lungs of a child the latter’s 
breath, and in the course of a short time the cat will be 
dead; but, on the other hand, as has often been done, 




72 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


let the cat exhale when the child inhales, and avoid the 
infant’s breath when it exhales, and so repeat this opera¬ 
tion a few times, and the child will be dead. This is not 
a theory as there are many instances of the fact. It has 
been called the drawing or sucking of the child’s breath 
by the cat; but as a matter of fact the cat holds its own 
mouth close to the babe’s so that the latter cannot get air 
except from the lungs of the cat, and this is loaded with 
carbon poisoning, known as carbonic acid, or carbon dioxid. 

Let a babe rest in its mother’s arms during the night and 
be compelled to inhale the breath of its parent, and the 
babe will either die or be so low in vitality that it will 
droop and be sickly. Many of the deaths by slow process 
of infants are due to this gross mistake, made by mothers 
and nurses. In a recent instance we heard of a boy seven 
months old who was born in the most splendid physical 
body, but who went into a decline after a while. Doctors 
were engaged at great expense, and not one could find the 
cause. At length our attention was brought to the matter 
through the Ralston Club, and we ascertained that the 
babe was accustomed to sleep at night in the arms of its 
mother inhaling her breath in part all through the time 
it lay there. We suggested the suspension of all medicines 
and treatment, and in their place a small bed raised from 
the floor and out of drafts, but in a room where the air was 
pure. The result was almost marvelous, as in less than a 
week the boy was in good health again. 

So nearly all human ills are traceable to errors rather» 
than to the actual failure of the body to maintain its vi¬ 
tality. 

Go in a room that is small, close all the doors and win¬ 
dows, and so remain with nine or ten other adults until all 
of you are sick with the headache. Note which one of you 
first falls from this effect. Then who is second, third, and 
so on. Before you have had the opportunity to have noted 
the last of the group as succumbing to headache, the one that 


CARBON POISONS 


73 


first gave up will either be dead or unconscious. Heart 
failure may thus be detected; also the relative vitality of 
each one; for whoever faints first will be the weakest of the 
party in Life Electricity. But whoever is strongest in this 
quality may be dead before the experiment is completed. 

While no one is expected to carry through to the end the 
foregoing test, it nevertheless is being enacted every day 
somewhere on this globe; and often at night in sleeping 
rooms, in halls, in meetings, and elsewhere. Another less 
dangerous experiment consists in taking a healthy man and 
putting him to bed in a room too small for him, closing 
all the doors and windows. In a few days his bright eyes 
will be dull, and his complexion will have paled. Later 
on he will be white and wan, and finally he will pass into a 
decline. He cannot by day habits of the best character, 
atone for the lack of air nights. 

Somebody’s else breath is not good for you; nor is your 
own breath good for others. More than that, your own 
breath is not good for yourself. Any exhaled air contains 
carbon poisons. 

As drafts at night are dangerous, and as carbon poisons 
are heavier than air, the remedy is to furnish ventilation 
near the floor of the sleeping room where the carbonic acid 
will escape and no draft can blow on the sleeper. The 
time is coming when all ventilation will be at the floor and 
also in a very small point at the highest part of the room, 
unless the individual becomes used to outdoor air at all 
times. 


74 


TWENTY-FIFTH LESSON 


CLOSED AIR’ 



fHILE CARBON POISONS are directly the 
cause of injury to the health and to the vitality of 
the body, the lack of glame in any air is a preventive 
of the development of Life Electricity or excessive energy. 
There are three classes involved in this distinction. One 
is the class of persons who are too much in the carbon 
poisons and who therefore pass into a decline that may 
invite grip, pneumonia, consumption or other malady. 

The second class includes persons who avoid to a large 
measure the direct effects of such poisons by having plenty 
of fresh air in their rooms, but who gather no glame. 

The third class embraces those who actually avoid the 
carbon poisons and who also do more than to live in air 
that is free from them. They seek the aggressive influence 
and power of glame by going where it is. 

There is a very important principle at stake in this mat¬ 
ter and it says in effect that glame will not pass a door or 
window. 

You would think that a room containing many windows 
and doors, all of which were open to the out door breezes, 
would be as full of outdoor vitality or glame as if it were 
all outdoors. But there are many facts that challenge such 
belief. 

In the cure of consumption, the one most potent remedy 
has been outdoor life. During the past few years we have 
been collecting the personal history of cases where families 
have moved to open places in the warm, rainless climes of 
the South, such as Texas and others, and we find the fol¬ 
lowing principles at work, showing the blundering of someone 
in the fearful loss of life where safety was close at hand 
but not grasped. 





CLOSED AIR 


75 


1. In one locality which hardly ever knew rain and where 
people could live outdoors all the year round, families that 
had open windows in their sleeping rooms and in their 
living rooms by day, lived longer than those that tried to se¬ 
cure benefit in the climate but not in the freedom of the air. 

2. People who thought that the climate itself was cura¬ 
tive, kept indoors and had very little moving air in their 
rooms. They depended on the climate and its reputation, 
and died sooner than others, but perhaps not as soon as 
they would if they had remained in the places of their for¬ 
mer residence. 

3. People who went into small rooms built out from the 
houses where they could be practically in the open air, as 
they thought, died as readily as those who remained in their 
sleeping rooms with the windows open at all times. 

4. People who slept at night on roofed piazzas, lived 
longer than any of the three classes described above, and 
many of them recovered; but there were some that died, 
even under the most perfect regime and diet. 

5. People who slept out of doors, entirely under the 
open sky, all got well where proper attention was paid to 
diet and regime. 

This experience has been repeated in every clime and lo¬ 
cality where patients have gone to seek relief from con¬ 
sumption. The mistake in the first place has been to place 
too much confidence in the climate. It is the open air any 
where on God’s footstool that effects the cure, and not the 
climate. There is no consumption where there is glame, 
and there is glame in the open air. This dread malady can¬ 
not be caught in the open air, try ever so hard. The man 
who took the germs into his system, and who never after 
that went into a house until their time of incubation had 
passed was no more affected by them than an iron post 
would be; for he knew that the source of danger was in¬ 
doors. 


76 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


Sanatoriums have found two sets of facts that are re¬ 
markable : 

1. Patients who night and day are out under the open 
sky through all kinds of weather, even during winter, never 
catch cold, but on the contrary get more and more vitality 
all the time. 

2. Healthy attendants on such patients who house them¬ 
selves at night, are addicted to colds and the grip the same 
as all persons who live in houses with closed windows. 

The open window is far more dangerous than outdoor 
air. 

If one who is not used to it were to sleep in a room with 
the window open all night, the chances are that a severe 
cold would be caught. But if the same person, even if not 
used to it were to sleep out under the sky and the bodily 
heat maintained, there would be no danger whatever. 
The risk is in the lowering of the temperature and in 
dampness; but clothing avoids the former difficulty, and 
waterproof outer garments the latter. 

Glame does not pass doors and windows. Glame is ex¬ 
cessive vitality. It is doubtless true that much pure air 
and much ordinary vitality will be admitted into a room 
by giving them the opportunity to come in; but the higher 
degree of power known as glame stays behind. What is 
it that makes the small detached room with windows on 
all sides, less helpful than the same room would be if the 
roof and sides were to be taken off? 

In sanatoriums that pretend to be established for the 
cure of consumption, this distinction has not been made in 
time to save lives; but the authorities are now awakening 
to the true principles involved, and there will be more hope 
in the future. 


77 


TWENTY-SIXTH LESSON 


“DUST” 



^UMUS DUST is the carrier of almost nine dis^ 


eases out of every ten. This fact is being now 


learned for the first time in the history of the race. 
That is humus which contains decay. Disease germs are 
as a rule vegetable in their nature, few being of the animal 
kingdom. Tetanus, diphtheria, typhoid, the grip, rabies, 
smallpox, consumption and many others are wholly vege¬ 
table. Humus is generally defined as made up of vegetable 
decay; but any rottenness will make the soil that bears 
this name. 

In the cities the dust taken at random from any of the 
streets shows the presence of the droppings or excretions 
of birds of many kinds, of cats, of dogs, of horses, of mice, 
rats, bugs and all sorts of insects, the decay of which feeds 
vegetable life; and to this is added the spittle of human be¬ 
ings and the various excretions that are not here describ- 
able; all making a mixture that, despite cleaning, is bound to 
be milled to a fine and invisible dust by the activities of city 


life. 


When in an invisible form, this dust will pass into 
buildings that are closed tight against it; even getting under 
the sash and past the fastened doors. In some countries it 
is said that no carpenter is able to make windows and 
doors so tight fitting that the fine sand will not get 
through them. How, then, can human ingenuity devise 
methods to exclude the invisible dust in which is ground 
the effette rot of many kinds of animal decay ? 

In a city many thousands of children are sleeping, mouths 
open and the passage of air to the lungs unimpeded by the 
spongy filters of the nostrils. Adults likewise are asleep, 
and ninety-nine out of every hundred of them have their 




78 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


mouths open. If the outdoor air is admitted, then diseases 
are sure to be introduced into their lungs, and it is only a 
question of time when they will succomb. If fresh air is 
admitted, it is not fresh, but is dust laden. If no fresh air 
is admitted, then the invisible dust will come in despite all 
efforts to keep it out. 

Thus nature, that intended the human race to dwell out¬ 
doors, is sending its penalties along faster than the race can 
combat them; for out of every million deaths to-day, more 
than eight hundred thousand are due to maladies of the 
throat and lungs. Do you know that, of the children that 
are born this year in this country, over one million will 
die of consumption? This is a fearful prospect for bringing 
new beings into existence. 

But you say that there is more dust outdoors than in the 
house. Yes, in the cities; but not in that form of life 
known as open, where the offal and execretions that are 
ground to a fine powder in the streets of cities, cannot be 
found. The cleanest of all city streets, yards and house 
floors, are alive with the germs of disease; and no human 
device will ever be found for keeping them out of the 
throats and lungs of humanity, as long as people seek homes 
in the cities. - 

Your plates, your glasses, your drinking water, milk, 
bread, meats, butter, and all that goes in your mouths, are 
loaded with this invisible city dust that you can detect 
easily by the aid of a microscope. What wonder then is it 
that deaths occur prematurely at the rate of ninety-nine in 
every hundred? What progress has the medical profession 
made when ninety-nine persons in every hundred are dying 
prematurely? 

In many cases the vitality of the body is all the time 
fighting these germs; but the life principle is being sac¬ 
rificed in so doing. 


79 


TWENTY-SEVENTH LESSON 


‘ INDOOR DUST” 


B URTAINS AND CARPETS in houses in the city 
are the sources of more sickness than all other im¬ 
mediate causes combined, for they catch the foul 
dust that comes in from the streets and hold it until such 
time as they are swept or agitated, then give it out into 
the air of the rooms to be inhaled by the occupants. 

All organizations, many of which are controlled by the 
various governments of this country, that are seeking to 
lessen the dangers of tuberculosis that is now claiming so 
many victims, insist that no person shall expectorate on 
sidewalks or steps, where the dresses of women will come 
in contact with the spittle and bring it into houses, there 
to dry and rise from the floor in the form of fine dust. It 
has been proved that this is a common means of bringing 
diseases into the home. But the greater danger seems to 
be lost sight of, that street dust when ground to invisible 
fineness, comes into all houses, clings to draperies, curtains, 
carpets, furniture, bed clothing and everything else on 
which dust may fall; and when there is the slightest agita¬ 
tion this dust is thrown into the air and then inhaled. 
Bedrooms are hotbeds of disease for this very reason. 

The outer clothing is covered with a thin layer of foul 
street dust, containing the germs that are in the very spittle 
that the police seek to prevent being thrown upon the side¬ 
walks. If you expectorate where women are likely to walk, 
you will be arrested; and if you ask the officers where you 
may spit, they will tell you the streets are for that pur¬ 
pose. Consumptives are seen going to the edge of walks 
and spitting in the gutters as they pass along. Many use 
the streets as they cross them. There is no law against 
this, and it would not reasonable to enact one. 





8o 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


But the dresses of women may take up some of the germs 
from walks and convey them into the house, although what 
is worse is the fact that the contents of the streets, made 
foul by every kind of pollution, including the spittle of 
sick people, are ground under the wheels and hoofs that pass 
to and fro incessantly until the whole mass becomes a dry 
and invisible dust that rises on the faintest air and reaches 
every house along the highway, no matter how tightly the 
doors and windows may be closed. 

Knowing these facts, school boards, with a desire to 
save the lives and health of children, ordered all rooms in 
the public buildings to be brushed and not swept. The 
brushing is supposed not to send the dust out into the air 
where it will slowly drop to the desks and floor again. For 
a while dry rags were used for wiping; but these were 
known to agitate the dust almost as much as brooms. Then 
wet or damp rags were employed; but these left much of the 
dust in the buildings. Finally strong antiseptic oils were 
put on the damp rags and the battle was won. Children 
noticeably improved, and such maladies as the grip, tubercu¬ 
losis, common colds which are due to dust indoors, and 
throat troubles ceased altogether as far as they were caught 
in school buildings. 

The fight must now be transferred to homes, to churches, 
to all places in fact where human beings live or go. Ob¬ 
servations show that churches, halls and other places that 
are swept in the old way are great sources of danger 
and disease; for no matter how thoroughly they are cleaned 
and aired, more than half of the dust falls down by set¬ 
tling and is brought into the air by the coming in of people, 
and this is inhaled during the time they remain. 

A common cold is the least of the dangers that follow; 
and this is enough to drive out of the body all Life Elec¬ 
tricity that may have been acquired, to say nothing of the 
more serious maladies that follow. 


8i 


TWENTY-EIGHTH LESSON 


‘SMOKE’’ 


S EATH OF CARBON is the greatest enemy of hu¬ 
man life. In previous lessons we have referred to 
the changes in carbon that occur in foods, and the 
other forms of this poison in nature, as well as in the body 
itself. One of the most important elements in existence is 
thus made the chief enemy of existence. But this is seem¬ 
ingly necessary. Carbon is a fuel whether taken in the 
form of food or for the purpose of making fire. As a fuel 
it must undergo violent changes in order to yield up its 
heat; and the result is a new condition. 

The lungs are the seat of life and the central zone in 
the development of vitality. They are the most sensitive 
part of the body. They can endure less of irritation than 
any other part. Deprived of air for four or five minutes, 
they give up life itself. 

Smoke sets up a severe irritation in the lungs. 

A breath of nothing but heavy smoke will cause death. 
This is due to the displacement of air in part, but chiefly 
to the poison that lurks in smoke which is, like the foul 
breath, loaded with carbon that has been used and is now 
a poison. 

The danger lies more in the lesser forms of injury than in 
the directly fatal results. It is estimated that three thou¬ 
sand persons were killed last year in this country by gas, 
fumes, or smoke escaping from broken-down carbon, either 
in the form of wood, charcoal, coke, or coal. But it is not 
the severer dangers that are the most important. 

What kills outright generally receives some attention so 
that others may be saved from a like result. But what 
does quiet injury is not heeded. 

If you live in a house where smoke or other form of 




82 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


used-up carbon is largely present in the rooms, your lungs 
will suffer great irritation that may break them down 
sooner or later, and result in membranous injury. Many 
cases of throat troubles and bronchial diseases are traceable 
to such cause. When the delicate lining of the membrane 
is inflamed, and this lesion is maintained often in the month, 
or daily as in many families, there is sure to follow atrophy 
of the cellular structure, which exposes the nerves of the 
parts to every passing breath and brings on terrible suffer¬ 
ing. 

But more than this the vitality is lessened for two reasons. 
One is the loss of nervous power in fighting the enemy, 
and the other is the decrease of the range of respiration 
which deprives the whole body of needed energy. 

Tobacco smoke is always hurtful to the lungs and the 
membranes of the throat and bronchial passages. No per¬ 
son should remain for a moment in any room where the 
least quantity of tobacco smoke can enter the lungs. To¬ 
bacco of itself is a poison, and is employed by horticulturists 
in killing insects, as it is the quickest and most powerful of 
all poisons known in the fight against pests. We have 
seen various kinds of applications in use to destroy bugs, and 
without avail; but tobacco never fails. Look at any cata¬ 
logue of nurserymen who advertise remedies for sale, and 
you will find tobacco preparations always foremost in their 
claims of death-dealing power. What will so speedily kill 
smaller animal life, will surely do injury to the lungs and 
membranes of persons who inhale any of the smoke. 

Tests and observations confirm this statement. Many 
persons who have become victims of bronchial maladies and 
lung troubles have allowed themselves to remain in rooms 
or cars where tobacco smoke has mingled with the air, and 
have thus reduced their vitality. 


83 


TWENTY-NINTH LESSON 


“GASOLINE” 


(j|^tf|INCE THE ADVENT of the automobile the use 
of gasoline has become very common. Before the 
automobile was ever dreamed of, gasoline was em¬ 
ployed in various ways. Doctors who are specialists in 
the cure of heart disease often caution their patients to 
avoid the smell of gasoline, either as oil or as burned fuel. 
In the former condition it so excites the heart that there 
is great danger of quick collapse. Persons who suffer from 
derangement of the nervous system are unable to endure the 
odor of gasoline, if near enough to inhale it; and when it 
can be smelt, it is always inhaled. 

It is one of the most volatile of oils. 

Gasoline reservoirs placed in yards a long distance from 
houses, will generate without any aid whatever a gas that, 
diffused with a large proportion of air, can be employed for 
illuminating purposes in all the rooms of houses to which 
pipes are led. An idea of its volatile qualities may thus 
be had. 

A few drops of gasoline will fill a large amount of air 
with a very irritating poison. This has a depressing effect 
on the heart and makes it impossible to maintain a high de¬ 
gree of vitality. Some persons have a fairly good power 
of resistance to this oil, and can work in its presence with¬ 
out noticing very bad results, but there is less energy and 
less power in the nervous system. 

In the midst of germs of every kind of disease, the salva¬ 
tion of the race depends on the power of the body to resist 
such germs. This power is materially lessened by every 
enemy that reduces the vitality; and it is not reasonable to 
suppose that such an extra degree of energy could be at¬ 
tained as that known as Life Electricity when one of the 




8 4 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


most active of all enemies is allowed to enter the lungs. 
Volatile gasoline and its smoke is such an enemy. 

When this resistance is lowered, then tuberculosis is the 
first serious ghost to stalk into one’s life; for the germs 
of that disease are never absent from the body, and they 
bide their time to begin their fatal work when the vitality 
is lowered. People who have worked much over gasoline, 
as in cleaning clothes and otherwise, have been subject to 
this malady. 

Those who ride in automobiles have what doctors to¬ 
day call the “ automobile heart,” and every person who has 
read the papers and magazines is easily familiar with this 
fact. But the doctors who do not study conditions closely 
are not cognizant of the real cause; and they assume that 
the high rate of speed is to blame for the weak hearts. 
Others who have given the matter close study find that the 
gasoline that is employed as the fuel of these cars and its 
volatile oil, as well as its burnt carbon, are the direct causes 
of the trouble. 

One of the means of proof is the fact that, where elec¬ 
tricity is used, the “ automobile heart ” is not found, ex¬ 
cept in crowded throughfares where occupants are com¬ 
pelled to take the gasoline smoke of other automobiles. 

To further establish the facts, we had three classes of 
users of these cars listed on the following basis: 

1. The first class to include persons who used electricity, 
and who avoided all cars that used gasoline. In one hun¬ 
dred scattered cases, there was not one case of “ automobile 
heart ” found. 

2. The second class included those who used electricity 
and did not avoid the gasoline smoke of other cars; they 
were addicted to heart trouble to some extent, and some 
of the hundred cases in this group had actually developed 
very bad conditions of the heart from no other cause than 
inhaling at times of a few seconds each the gasoline smoke 
from other cars as they passed on the road. 


GASOLINE 


85 


3. The third class of another hundred cases included 
those who rode in cars that burned gasoline. Ninety-two 
of them were sickly after three years of such experience, and 
most of them suffered from weak heart and collapsed lungs. 
Not one of them had a normal state of vitality. . 

Anaemia, or the wasting away of the blood, was a further 
penalty of the habit of inhaling gasoline odors and gasoline 
smoke. Yet, in cases where electricity was used, the blood 
was steadily made better if the odor of gasoline from other 
cars was avoided. 

People w r ho walk out on the streets of cities should keep 
away from thos parts where automobiles pass frequently, as 
they leave behind them long trails of burnt gasoline that will 
soon bring on lung weakness and heart depression. If you 
must be where such a car passes, stop, turn your face away, 
and hold the breath until the odor has entirely gone: for 
it is far better for the health and for the vitality to not 
breathe at all for a minute or so than to allow even the 
slightest bit of gasoline smoke or odor to enter the lungs. 

In cities most automobiles that burn gasoline leave a 
trail of about five hundred feet of this volatile and ex¬ 
ceedingly dangerous poison in the air. You can smell it 
for a block or more after the machine has passed. 

In some of the parks where children have been taken by 
nurses for pure air, there is a constant passing of automobiles 
that use gasoline, and it has been noted as a direct result 
that such children have been more frail and the death rate 
among them has been materially increased, owing to the 
poisonous action of gasoline on the lungs. The remedy is 
to instruct the nurses to seek other places where the cars 
do not pass so freely with their trails of burnt gasoline. 

There is no danger to the lungs when electricity is em¬ 
ployed as a motive power. The coming of alcohol will 
help reduce the danger about fifty percent; as the fresh 
fumes of alcohol are not by any means as hurtful to the 
lungs as gasoline. The burnt smoke of alcohol is a smoke- 


86 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


poison, and is not as bad as gasoline poison, although no 
person should allow it in the lungs under any circum¬ 
stances. 

The true solution of this problem lies in the use of elec¬ 
tricity in place of both gasoline and alcohol; but, until that 
can be believed, all people are cautioned never to breathe 
the least bit of gasoline or its smoke. Avoid it as you would 
the infection of any disease, for you do not want to go about 
day after day with your vitality being eaten away by this 
common and ever increasing enemy. 

As long as there is the least smell of the gasoline you 
should not inhale it, especially the burnt odor. The resi¬ 
duum of gasoline, as where it has been used for cleaning 
clothes, is not hurtful if a person is not sensitive to it, as 
the volatile part has gone out; but the smoke of gasoline is 
always dangerous as long as any of the scent remains. 

Some houses in cities and towns are located on the streets 
that are most frequented by passing automobiles. These 
should be closed so as not to allow the slightest odor to 
enter; for dead indoor air is much less injurious than that 
which contains this deadly enemy of the heart and lungs. 
If pure air is wanted in cities, some location that is free 
from the dust of the streets and the gasoline of automobiles 
should be selected. Move away from the central highways, 
and go out to some part where there is the least amount of 
travel. If you can afford it, go to the country, but get away 
from roads that are used by gasoline-driven machines. 


87 


THIRTIETH LESSON 


“PAIN AND SUFFERING” 


c j^g^ OMETIMES a person will feel the most exhilarat- 
ing buoyancy and be brought up by a sudden agony 
in the teeth or elsewhere, with the result that all 
the accumulated vitality has fled. Nothing can so quickly 
empty the ganglionic cells that store human electricity 
as pain and suffering. No person can be expected to be 
cheerful, sympathetic or alert who has a boil. A great boat 
race was recently lost by the agonizing suffering of a mem¬ 
ber of the crew who had a boil about ready to burst. To 
use his own words, “ All my courage and life seemed to have 
gone out. I was limp and weak from suffering.” 

Some persons allow a grumbling toothache to continue 
for days and weeks, not realizing that it takes away the 
electricity of the mind and the nerves. The pain should be 
brought to an end at once; and there are ways of saving the 
tooth without continuing the pain. 

A young man who was in a highly electrical mood for 
proposing to a most beautiful young lady, in walking to 
her struck his foot in such a way that one of the small toes 
was pinched under a carved projection of a table leg. It 
caught his corn right in the very heart, and the pain made 
him as limp as a moist fabric, causing a revulsion of feeling 
on the part of the fair maiden. His electricity was gone. His 
lips ejaculated an expression that he ordinarily would have 
omitted until after marriage at least. As nothing is easier 
to cure than a corn, there is no reason why a person should 
suffer with this kind of pain. A sharp knife will remove 
the whole growth of the corn, and any antiseptic salve ap¬ 
plied each morning will prevent a new growth for some 
time. It cannot be cured however, without the knife, and 




88 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


this should be applied to the under skin, but without causing 
any bleeding. 

The pains of rheumatism will deplete all Life Electricity 
of the body. Pain of any kind is a runaway nervous 
power, carrying the very vitality with it. There can be no 
hope of storing a large fund, or any fund, of life in the body 
beyond the minimum needed to sustain the commonest ex¬ 
istence, until a successful warfare has been carried on 
against pain whether acute, chronic or dull. Vitality runs 
out with it, and life is at a very low ebb. A person does 
not feel like taking up the duties of existence. 

Indigestion causes a blind pain that can be recognized 
by pushing in the walls of the abdomen over the stomach 
and around it. This condition is taxing to the vitality and 
must be completely corrected before Life Electricity can be 
accumulated. 

Headaches are due to carbon poisons in nine cases out of 
ten, and may be cured by an intelligent application of the 
principles taught in some of the lessons that precede this part 
of our work. A bad diet will also bring on a headache. 
Neuralgia, which is a pain in any part of the head, and 
sometimes in the neck and around the heart, is due to a low 
state of vitality, brought on either by a bad diet or by loss 
of sleep, loss of energy through excesses of some kind, or 
any course that lessens the life of the nervous powers. 
Sometimes it is the reaction that follows the use of tea, 
colfee or alcohol. 

As neuralgia is a warning of nature telling of some such 
loss, it should always be accepted as a kindness and acted 
upon. The diet should be as simple as possible for a few 
days, and sleep should be prolonged until the pain is gone. 

Remember that Life Electricity will not enter the body 
as long as the vitality is sapped by pain or suffering of any 
kind. 


89 


THIRTY-FIRST LESSON 


‘‘THE MEMBRANES” 


^ygv^ERY FEW PERSONS understand the part played 
by the membranes in the plan of life. They are 
somewhat like organs having the means of pumping 
the fluids of the body out of the blood upon their surfaces 
and there distributing them for use. Each function is pro¬ 
vided with a membrane without which it would be worth¬ 
less. The brain rests within the encasing folds of the 
meninges, the mucus from which supplies the electrical 
processes which sustain thought. 

The spinal cord is sheathed in membranes that receive 
the acid and alkali from the blood and thereby set up the 
electrical changes that make power throughout all the 
nerves for every purpose of life. 

The kidneys are wrapped in membranes the decay or 
change of which bring on fatal dangers. The heart has its 
well known pericardium that furnishes it with the energy 
of a truly electrical character that maintains the beating of 
that important organ. The liver is also covered in a sim¬ 
ilar manner. The lungs dwell within the greatest of all 
sacks that are in reality the whole inner lining of the chest. 
The lower organs are also provided with membranes. 

The longest and by far the most abused of all this great 
family is the alimentary canal, which begins at the mouth, 
or nose as some say, and extends to the stomach, thence 
through all the intestines to the colon and ends outside the 
body. It is at all stages a feeding membrane, for every 
inch of its length is capable of digesting some parts of the 
contents and sending it into the circulation of the blood. 

Vitality is destroyed to a large extent by sickness, and 
vitality on the other hand sets up sickness when it loses its 
own strength. It is needed at high power in order to meet 




go 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


the attacks of so many enemies; for man stands surrounded 
at all times by mortal fores. It is for this reason that 
ninety-nine per cent of all humanity die prematurely. 

Vitality is located in the ganglionic cells and from those 
points is distributed to the membranes. The jar that holds 
electricity in a bottled condition, and also all storage bat¬ 
teries, depend on the inner surfaces to retain the electrical 
power. The condition of the membranes is always the key 
to great vitality in the human body. If you can keep these 
in good health you can make a large leap at once toward a 
vast fund of Life Electricity. 

If you have heart trouble it will first find the pericardium 
out of order. If you have catarrh of the nose, it will first 
find the lining of the nasal chamber out of order, and this 
is a very valuable membrane. If you have diphtheria, it 
must first find the membrane of the throat in bad condition. 
If you have bronchitis, it must find the membrane of the 
passage to the lungs in bad shape. So with pneumonia, 
phthisis, asthma, consumption, indigestion, liver trouble, ap¬ 
pendicitis, peritonitis, and almost all other diseases. So 
agonizing a malady as hay fever is confined to the smallest 
area of the nose; yet it is one unending torment while it 
lasts. The dreaded typhoid is a disease of the membrane 
known as the bowel lining. Appendicitis begins in the 
lining membrane of the intestine and extends to the smaller 
branch. Cholera, yellow fever, cholera morbus, acute in¬ 
digestion which is generally fatal in a minute, and other 
maladies are dependent on the weakened condition of the 
membranes in which they are seated. What is more agon¬ 
izing than asthma? Yet it is only a local lesion in the small 
tube that passes to the lungs. It is the membranous sur¬ 
face that, being irritated, causes intense suffering and par¬ 
oxysms. 

The alimentary canal from the face to the end of the 
colon is subject to a line of attack as long as its own length; 


THE MEMBRANES 


9i 


it is always prey to disease. If it were not a membrane it 
would in all probability escape. 

Practically all chronic maladies are located in the mem¬ 
branes. 

Every membrane is the outgrowth of the stomach. 

Every chronic disease and nearly all acute diseases as 
well, have their origin in the stomach. 

Nearly all diseases are due to the presence of germs. 

Germs cannot secure a hold on any part of the human 
body until a feeding-field has been set up in some part of 
the body. 

No disease can have its origin, therefore, until such a field 
has been established. 

All feeding-fields are congested membranes the lesions of 
the surface of which furnish food for the feeding and rapid 
increase of germs that reach it and secure a hold on it. 

A perfectly well or normal membrane cannot furnish food 
for germs. 

The lesions that occur on the surface of membranes be¬ 
gin at the stomach and extend by spreading to all other 
membranes, or to such others as may be reached in the 
spread of the trouble. 

Thus the beginning of every disease is at the stomach. 

The first step in the lesion that starts at the stomach is 
due to carbonic acid, which is the result of food stagnating 
there and then turning to such acid by the process known 
as ferment. 

An active stomach cannot ferment. 

When the diet is improper the liver refuses to act, and 
the gastric juices are stopped; the result being the stagna¬ 
tion of the food in the stomach, followed by lesion of the 
surface and consequent injury to other membranes. 

A lesion that starts in the stomach by carbonic acid will, 
if severe, travel upward to the lungs, heart, throat and nose, 
the disturbed condition of all these membranes showing step 
by step the advance of the trouble. If normal health can 


92 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


be restored before the progress of the lesion has been great, 
it will gradually rcede and be healed dear back to the 
stomach. 

The lesion may at the same time extend downward to the 
lower organs, and involve the whole of the alimentary canal 
in so doing. 

It is a well established fact that appendicitis cannot occur 
until there has been long continued lesion in the stomach, 
involving the intestine as far down as the appendix. No 
person who pretends to deal with this growing and most 
dangerous malady should remain ignorant of these facts. 

By many thousands of cases of observation and test, ex¬ 
tending through a third of a century, the Ralston Club has 
arrived at the one great conclusion that all maladies begin 
by the lesion of the stomach and proceed to other parts 
through the intricate system of membranes. 

So simple a condition as catarrh of the nose is first orig¬ 
inated in the stomach; for catarrh cannot occur until the 
lesion has extended from the stomach to the nasal chamber. 
How can a disturbance take such lengths, may be asked. 
Every doctor knows that the sides of the tongue are inflamed 
and show red when the stomach is inflamed. How can 
this happen ? Every doctor also knows that, when the 
tongue is coated, the intestines are out of order, even to the 
colon, which is much further from the tongue than the nose 
is from the stomach. 

It is new perhaps to the general public, but is neverthe¬ 
less a well established fact, that the lesion that begins at the 
stomach advances rapidly to all other membranes and soon 
involves them. Even the whites of the eyes show murky, 
cloudy and dirty when the stomach is out of order. 

It is not necessary that there should be a felt pain in 
the stomach in order to start lesion. If there is any ferment 
at all, the trouble begins and spreads, although it may not 
be great enough to cause pain to the nerves. Catarrh is 
certainly the result of a very grave lesion, but gives out no 


THE MEMBRANES 


93 


pain whatever. The injury to the membrane of the nose 
and nasal chamber during catarrh is serious, but to the eye 
would not show much disturbance with the membrane; but 
the magnifying glass would quickly make the inflammation 
known. 

Typhoid is a very bad malady; yet it never can secure a 
hold on the membrane of the alimentary canal unless there 
is lesion that has arisen from carbonic acid in the stomach, 
due to a wrong diet. 

Consumption is likewise an awful disease, one to be most 
feared of all that threaten mankind; yet the lungs and 
their membranes must be first affected by lesion arising from 
carbonic acid in the stomach and spreading to the chest, 
where the feeding-fields are set up ready for the approach 
of the germs of tuberculosis. Let the lesion be lacking and 
there can be no consumption. The same is true of penu- 
monia and all other maladies. 

Curative methods are always difficult, but have the great 
approval of mankind. Preventive methods are always easy, 
and rarely have the approval of mankind. The whole thing 
is summed up in one sentence: 

Nature provides normal food for humanity and punishes 
with disease and death the refusal to take such food. 

With normal food there can be no lesion of the stomach, 
no lesion of any membrane, no feeding-fields for germs, no 
sickness, no disease, no suffering, and no premature deaths. 
As these evils destroy vitality it is very apparent that the 
study of Life Electricity must include the consideration of 
the question of normal food. 


94 


THIRTY-SECOND LESSON 

“SLEEP” 


@ 0 ONE SUBJECT has been the cause of so much 
discussion as that of sleep. Advocates of very little 
sleep and of abundance of sleep are found with views 
and reasons that are quite opposed to each other. It is 
well known that lack of sleep brings on mental losses and 
sometimes insanity. It is also known that the vitality runs 
low and is turned to neuralgia when the system is short of 
this great blessing. 

On the other hand too much sleep deadens the nerves and 
makes a person stupid. We have never yet seen a stupid 
person who possessed Life Electricity. Neither can go with 
the other. An excess of slumber makes it very difficult to 
store away a vast fund of energy. Existence is activity, 
and sleep is rest for repair. The more repair that is needed, 
the more sleep is needed. Repair is required under two 
conditions: 

i. When excess of effort has wasted or used up the vi¬ 
tality. 

2. When lesion of the stomach, as described in the pre¬ 
ceding lesson, has drawn upon the vitality. 

One of the most sensible remarks we have ever heard 
was made by a great expert on the nervous system and 
brain. He was asked how much sleep a person required in 
twenty-four hours and replied: “It depends on the diet.” 

This means, as he explained, that food that is readily di¬ 
gested and that passes to blood with a large proportion of 
nutrition, will not tax the strength of the nervous system 
to digest it; but that food that is hard to digest, producing 
lesion in the stomach, will be a severe tax on the vitality and 
set up lesion in the stomach, to cure which will require re¬ 
pairing sleep. A meal that is based largely on a wrong diet 




SLEEP 


95 


is most easily disposed of by rest and sleep soon after eating 
it. The multi-millionaire who, last Thanksgiving Day, ate 
heartily of such a meal and who went out into the golf field 
for exercise with which to throw off the effects of over¬ 
eating, found the extra tax of the exercise, added to the 
strain on the nervous system at the stomach, too much for 
his heart, and he fell dead. Under a sensible regime he 
might have lived to double the age at which he died. Had 
he lain down and slept directly after his dinner, he would 
possibly have been saved. 

Of the two evils, too much sleep and too little sleep, the 
former is a greater enemy of excessive vitality than the 
latter. You cannot be great and sleep too grossly. The 
author of these lessons slept on an average of three hours 
in every twenty-four during nearly thirty years. Many 
a night has been spent in hard work until five o’clock in the 
morning, and no sleep obtained until the middle of the 
day. 

Two or three short periods of sleep are better for a vital 
person that one full period during the night. It is ordina¬ 
rily said that an adult requires eight hours of slumber. 
The same adult might, if a few hours were secured in the 
night and a half hour in the day, get along with a total of 
four. hours in the twenty-four. There is nothing that so 
whets the mental activities as brief sleep. But there is the 
opposite danger, that of ruining the mind and despoiling the 
nervous system. The gigantic tasks of the world have been 
achieved by those who have worked in the night and slept 
when they could. But it takes care in so arranging one’s 
regime, or there will come the breakdown. 

The best rule to follow is this: The nearer to a normal 
diet one comes, the less sleep is required, for there is less 
loss of vitality to be repaired. 


g6 


THIRTY-THIRD LESSON 


“HABITS” 


g ROM THE EARLIEST years of life all human 
beings are contracting habits that operate against 
the accumulation of great vitality. Those that re¬ 
late directly to matters of health have been considered. 
Others that bear upon the general conduct of the individual 
will be briefly discussed in this lesson. The body consists 
of functions and faculties. The functions are those me¬ 
chanical operations of the organs that are always carried 
on without control from the mind. The faculties are the 
activities of the body that have been developed by experi¬ 
ence, and may be changed by the will power. 

All faculties run in habits. 

Some of the functions take on habits, as when the lungs 
by wrong methods are reduced to a very limited range in 
breathing. The stomach adjusts itself to the habits of 
eating, and in time learns to dispose of a bad diet with less 
harm than it suffers at first. Owing to this peculiar char¬ 
acter of the stomach many persons are able to eat and drink 
things that would kill other persons who were not used to 
them. 

Wrong habits of the functions are due to errors of per¬ 
mission. 

The nerves when given permission to act as they please 
will sometimes become very sensitive and tend toward the 
hysterical habit. You can let them behave as they will, or 
you can change their activities to a great extent. This fact 
has been verified thousands of times, and one typical case 
will illustrate it at this place. 

A woman who had been given every possible freedom for 
her freakish nature by an indulgent husband, developed 
habitual hysterics which kept her vitality very low and made 




HABITS 


97 


her a nuisance to all persons who were acquainted with 
her. Driven to shame the husband went away and the wife 
eventually secured a divorce for desertion. But her ner¬ 
vous weakness did not lessen any until she found a man 
who seemed to take an interest in her. He was many years 
her senior, had wealth, and might make her a good second 
husband. One evening she heard him make the remark 
that he despised hysterical women. She knew her failing 
and resolved to actually cure herself of it. It is known that 
she succeeded and, to this day, has never had a nervous 
breakdown nor shown the slightest signs of hysteria. 

Thousands of other women have conquered the same fault 
by the use of a determined will power. 

Most men and women have in this age a weak and un¬ 
certain nervous temperament which runs away with their 
vitality if permitted to do so. The doctor who said the 
only cure was to “ pull yourself together and drive the 
fault out of the system by a good dose of common sense,” 
was nearer right than those who prescribe medicines and 
change of climate. 

Habits of the mind are likewise altered for the better by 
the same heroic treatment. 

The hygienic faults are many in almost all human lives 
and need only to be hinted at to be cured. Some of them 
we will merely mention at this place: 

1. The habit of bathing the body and placing unclean 
clothing on the cleaned skin, is hurtful because the clean 
skin absorbs the urea that is always on the clothing. 

2. The habit of going to bed at night with sticky urea on 
the skin, interferes with the circulation and impoverishes 
the blood. The skin of the legs and feet should always be 
wiped with a wet cloth just before retiring. This takes 
about a minute. A better bath is more serviceable, but the 
wet cloth wiping will do wonders toward keeping the elec¬ 
tric fluids in good condition. A morning wet wiping is 
also helpful. These little matters that take so small an 


9 8 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


amount of time are neglected because people have not the 
power to start to do unusual things. 

3. Constipation is due to a bad habit or else to bad diet. 
In the code of normal foods later on in this work the diet 
is corrected, but the habits may be so bad that no change 
in eating will effect a cure. Constipation always indi¬ 
cates in the first place that the stomach is receiving daily 
more than twice the amount of food it needs, and richer 
food than is wanted by the body. Then it also indicates 
that one lies in bed mornings too close to the time of eating 
breakfast. Three hours of gentle activity out of doors in 
the morning on an empty stomach will generally end the 
worst case of constipation if aided by reducing the daily 
quantity of food to about one-half or less. 

4. Neglect of peristalsis is also a bad habit, as it keeps 
foul matter in the intestines and colon where the blood is 
always taking some of it back to the lungs and heart, caus¬ 
ing bad breath and fearful odors in the perspiration and 
all over the skin. The bowels should be evacuated regu¬ 
larly at least once in every twenty-four hours and best at 
night before retiring or in the morning after the first meal. 

5. Remaining in bed on waking up after daylight is a 
habit as it teaches the functions to become sluggish. The 
vital hours of the day are in the early morning at all times 
of the year; and especially in the growing months of spring 
and summer; but every morning is more vital in fall, winter 
and spring, than any other part of the day. People of 
sedentary habits cannot get up at daylight all through the 
year; but if they are actually wide awake, it is better to do 
so. 

6. Over-eating is a bad habit and one that weakens the 
body and its vitality. Most sedentary people eat twice as 
much as they need. The rule is to arise from the table or 
at least to stop eating just before the hunger is satisfied. 
Get up a little hungry and leave the sight of food for a 
few hours, A mid-forenoon lunch, and one in the mid- 


HABITS 


99 


afternoon, if light and wholesome and wholly free from 
rich food, will help the body to some extent if the head 
aches or there is a sinking feeling. A hungry headache is 
a genuine thing and not the result of imagination. It 
should always be catered to by something to eat that will 
not lessen the appetite for the next meal. A banana, if 
dead ripe and clean, is generally the best thing to eat be¬ 
tween meals; or a cup of malted milk, or a dozen milk 
tablets. 

7. Going to bed on an empty stomach is a bad fault. 
The blood that should be in even circulation rushes to the 
idle and agitated nerves about the stomach, and this organ 
always communicates with the brain in such an emergency, 
with the result that the brain is kept active at that time 
when sleep is most needed. In the winter time the best 
thing to take just before going to bed is a glass of hot 
malted milk, or iced ordinary milk; but a dead ripe and 
clean banana every night in the year is sufficient if it agrees 
with a person. The juice alone of a ripe orange is also 
good, omitting the pulp. So is a ripe apple of very mild 
flavor. The stomach needs something to keep its nerves 
quited while the brain falls into slumber. 

8. Activity of the physical mind is very hurtful to the vi¬ 
tality, if persisted in up to an hour before retiring. There 
should be at least one full hour of diversion for the 
thoughts, or else the psychic mind should be given an op¬ 
portunity to hold the attention as taught in the course of 
training entitled “ Unseen Powers.” This will relieve the 
most aggravated cases of insomnia and save both vitality and 
life; for it is a well known fact that sleeplessness has ended 
many a brilliant career by its insidious treachery in sapping 
the substance of the brain and breaking down its cells and 
fluids. 

9. Any occupation that causes the chest to drop or the 
spine to curve forward, should be avoided, and the thoughts 
should be trained to note such conditions. The heart is 


100 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


greatly weakened, and the range of respiration in the lungs 
is lessened more than one-half. Many games thus cramp 
the chest and deaden the vitality. The acquisition of Life 
Electricity is based on the full chest well poised between 
the shoulders. Craning of the neck, stooping, leaning for¬ 
ward too much, and similar faults are to be avoided. Fixed 
attention such as comes from games of chance and card 
playing also lowers the range of respiration and thereby 
takes away the very soul of Life Electricity. At no time of 
the waking hours should the breathing cease. 

10. Excessive activities of the muscles, and all hard work 
as well as hard exercise, depletes the ganglionic cells which 
store away the vitality of the body. There must be the 
mean between the extremes. 

11. Sedentary habits are very hurtful to the vitality. 
All the parts of the body should be given something to do 
for a considerable portion of every day, but not real hard, 
straining work. Idleness is far more injurious than ex¬ 
cess of action, although both must be avoided. There are 
many little duties that you can perform every day 
with your muscles and you should let no one do them 
for you if you can help it. Our motto in this study reads 
as follows: “Never permit another to do what you can 
do yourself.” Be quick to jump up to do something that 
some one else may start to do for you. Hunt for some¬ 
thing to do. Help about the house. Devise methods for 
making the home cleaner or more attractive, even if not 
more beautiful. Happiness has but one source, and that is 
in useful activities. 

12. Avoid losses of power by indiscretions. At night 
go to sleep when you go to bed. Retire at reasonable 
hours. Cut out all engagements that take you from your 
home. Spend the evenings with your family, or most of 
them, unless necessity calls you away. If you are out of 
your house at night, have your family with you. It will 
pay you sooner or later. There is coming the time when 


FAREWELL TO ENEMIES 


IOI 


you will need the love, the help, the sympathy and the care 
of your own immediate relatives, so do not sacrifice their 
best feelings by seeming neglect or selfishness now. Peo¬ 
ple who are lovers of home life live longer than others, be¬ 
cause they are cared for better and helped through those 
crises that are sure to come to all humanity. Do not 
allow physical or animal inclinations to guide you. In 
your marital relations remember that temperance puts the 
electrical power on its finest edge and makes husband and 
wife more dear to each other than the brutal waste of 
energy. 

13. Keep unclean things out of your mouth. 


THIRTY-FOURTH LESSON 


FAREWELL TO THE ENEMIES” 


^rw^NDER THE PLAN of this system the enemies of 
■$ 1 ) Life Electricity have been given the first consideration 
in order that the way may be paved to the brighter 
side of the subject and the affirmative training that is to fol¬ 
low. It may be asked why we mention the enemies at all. 
It is answered by asking you what course a good farmer will 
pursue who wishes to raise a successful crop on stony and 
weedy ground? 

If you have no faults, you need not study the lessons 
that precede. 

If you have faults, you are like the rich land that the 
farmer took in charge. It had many big and small stones 
on it. It had thorns and weeds. There were Canada 
thistles, and dock, and plantain, and Osage orange roots 
from some old fence line, and other enemies to the proposed 
crop. The farmer could not plow under the big stones, 
nor the thistle, nor the poison vine, nor the orange roots, 






102 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


for they would remain or their ghosts would stalk in the 
fields ever after. 

So he proceeded to eliminate them, one by one. Wagons 
and carts were loaded with the stones which went to make 
good roads. The offending plants and roots were dug out 
and burned. It was a tedious process, but it paid. 

On the land he put the encouraging compost, and over 
this he ran his plow, cutting deep furrows; and he har¬ 
rowed the ground until it was mellow and fine. Then 
he was ready for the results, and they came. 

This is the story of life. We all have faults. We all 
want the grand power of Life Electricity. We all have 
enemies of that power. In the preceding lessons those 
enemies have appeared one by one and been given over to 
the greatest of all masters, Omission, to be weeded out 
and cast away. 


10 $ 


THE 

AFFIRMATIVE COURSE 

OF 

INSTRUCTION AND TRAINING 

IN 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 







THIRTY-FIFTH LESSON 


105 


“THE FRIENDS” 

VERY SYSTEM that is complete is two-sided. It 
looks backward and forward. It recognizes the fact 
that there are always obstacles to success in every 
march toward a fixed goal of great reward. The more de¬ 
sired an attainment, the more difficult it is to grasp. In 
human life there are enemies and faults at every turn. 
Many writers are able to point these out to their startled 
readers; but they go no further. They break down and 
cannot build up. Wrongs that are hateful and disheart¬ 
ening abound in this world, and men who discover them 
and can show substitutes for them, are more valuable to 
the public than those who are contented with tearing down 
where they cannot build again. 

Life Electricity is an attainment the rewards of which 
cannot be surpassed. 

But it has its enemies, and these have been considered. 
Under one of the basic principles it has been stated that 
it comes into being naturally, and another says it is born 
spontaneously when opposing conditions are removed. 
Here are the first gains that come in this study; they are 
negative, to be sure, but they are immensely helpful. If 
you are able to remove the enemies, then Life Electricity 
will be born of itself and will thrive, and this course of 
instruction might stop here. The reason why we go on 
with it, even to double the length in the affirmative divi¬ 
sions than in the negative, is because the removal of the ene¬ 
mies is not an easy task by itself, unaided by a system of 
instruction that builds up faster than the debris falls in 
the tearing down. 

In order to grasp the plan under which this course pro¬ 
ceeds it is thought advisable to review the basic laws which 
were set forth in the sixth lesson. They are as follows: 






io6 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


1. Life Electricity, or glame, is excessive vitality. 

2. It cames into being naturally. 

3. It is born spontaneously when opposing conditions are 
removed. 

4. Helpful Conditions give it further impulse and growth. 

5. Special practice controls it for all uses. 

6. Plant life and human life depend on the same laws 
of vitality. 

7. Human life is supported by plant life. 

8. Life Electricity is quickly wasted by extremes. 

A summary of these basic laws is as follows: 

The first law describes the nature of Life Electricity. 

The second and third laws are closely allied to the neg¬ 
ative part of the study and intend to say that Life Electric¬ 
ity, when stripped of the influence of its enemies, will grow 
of itself and become a great power. 

The fourth law refers to the friends which are known 
as helpful conditions. 

The fifth law goes beyond this and introduces the sub¬ 
ject of special practice as a means of aiding the develop¬ 
ment of Life Electricity. 

The sixth and seventh laws make known the fact that 
human life and plant life are parts of each other, and that 
the former is supported by the latter. 

The last law warns us that extremes are to be avoided 
in all things. 

Specifically speaking the friends of this power are those 
conditions that are regarded as helpful in the development 
of excessive vitality; and these we will proceed to set forth. 




io7 


THIRTY-SIXTH LESSON 


“THE LIST OF FRIENDS” 


S TUDENTS are given a clearer idea of a system of 
study when they can take a glance at its component 
parts in brief form. For this purpose we will at 
this stage of the work present the list of friends, or the 
conditions that are helpful to the development of Life Elec¬ 
tricity. They appear in seven classes as follows: 

i. Natural life. 

2. Associate life. 

3. Vital periods. 

4. Qualities. 

5. Distillation. 

6. Normal foods. 

7. Glame habits. 

As some of the above terms are used technically they 
will not at once be comprehended, and explanations will 
be necessary. It is well to memorize them and compare 
them at once with the enemies of Life Electricity which 
are described in the eighth lesson of this study. 

Review and comparison are marks of good scholarship, 
and should at all times be indulged in. Many times read¬ 
ing the same instruction will serve to make it more effect¬ 
ive in influencing the mind and conduct of the student. 
Adoption is not often required if the mind understands 
and prizes the value of a principle; for there is always an 
unconscious appropriation of a law or fact when it is fre¬ 
quently before the attention. For this reason all the 
lessons that have thus far been given should be gone over 
one or more times in review. 




io8 


THIRTY-SEVENTH LESSON 


NATURAL LIFE’’ 



O ATTEMPTS will be made to intrude upon the 
fixed habits and modes of living of the student. 
Whatever development will arise is to come from the 
undercurrents of progress that flow of themselves, although 
they may be aided very much, by the friends that help them 
along; therefore when we say that natural life is one of 
the means of acquiring Life Electricity, we do not intend to 
ask any person to go into a state of nature. All that is 
sought is to impress on the mind the value of nature as 
the source of all the power that can ever enter the human 
body. 

Natural life includes three divisions in name, but one 
only in fact, and they may be stated as follows; 

1. The sun. 

2. The air. 

3. The life that is about us. 

All these give us some of themselves. When we are 
in the house we get but little if any of the sun. The air 
we inhale is deprived of its glame, as that wondrous power 
will not pass doors or windows. Nor do we find much 
genuine life about us in the rooms of a building. Grow¬ 
ing plants are compelled to struggle for their very ex¬ 
istence indoors just as people do who are shut away from 
the existence that is all about them in the open air. When 
out of doors they have an excess of life to contribute to 
ours, just as we would if we were out of doors all the 
time. 

Nature never intended that humanity should shut itself 
up in the house, and she is constantly providing penalties 
for so doing. Of all the methods by which great longevity 
may be reached, that of living out of doors is by far the 





NATURAL LIFE 


109 


most effective. If you were to try to enumerate the dis¬ 
eases that you will catch out of doors, you will find your¬ 
self blocked at every step, for it is not known that any of 
the maladies of the temperate zone can be caught except 
in the rooms of a house. 

When dust rises from the land where nature reigns su¬ 
preme, as in the country, its germs never succeed in pass¬ 
ing the sun and air that play about them. If there are 
tuberculosis germs in the cow yards, spread the earth about 
and turn it over so that the sun and air can get at them, 
and all the germs will be destroyed. Tetanus germs are 
destroyed by opening the wound and allowing the pure air 
and sun to shine on the wound; and there is no antiseptic 
so effective as this. Typhoid is first preceded by the weak¬ 
ening effects of a bad diet making lesions in the stomach 
and intestines, and the vitality of the outdoor air, if taken 
all the time, would make such a disease impossible. You 
never hear of a man who has been brought up in the very 
lap of nature being afflicted with typhoid. All the throat, 
nose and lung diseases are caught from the dust of houses, or 
of streets in the cities. Even skin diseases, or some that 
arise or take their start at the exposed surface of the body, 
are due to infected city dust or house dust lighting on the 
body. The first breaking out is at the hands, the wrists, 
the face and the neck. 

There are two reasons of a very practical kind why 
natural life is by far the best for humanity: 

1. All natural vitality is there, out of doors, and not in 
the house. 

2 . The dangers to life and health are not out of doors, 
but dwell in the dust of the living rooms of houses. 


no 


THIRTY-EIGHTH LESSON 


“THE SUN” 



’EW MINDS ever seek to grasp the mysteries of the 


universe which surrounds this globe. What the 


stars are is as much unknown as what death opens 
into. Yet we can see the stars and cannot see beyond 
death. It is supposed that our own solar system is the type 
of the whole heavens. Our earth, big as it seems when we 
attempt to dig a canal from ocean to ocean across a mere 
thread of land, is yet so small that it would require 
1,331,000 more worlds like it of a diameter each of 8,000 
miles, to build an orb of the size of the sun. 

To understand this take one million big apples and make 
an enormous heap of them out by some mountain side, and 
then take a small apple and hold it in the hand. The 
million big apples all put together make the size of the 
sun, compared to the one small apple in your hand which 
is the earth. We therefore are very slight in our im¬ 
portance as the world compared with the sun; and our solar 
system is very insignificant as a spot in the sky compared 
with the great ocean of worlds that sweeps on before us 
as we gaze at it through the telescope. 

Out from this sun of ours there leaps every second of 
time a big flame of power, reaching far away to bathe 
its planets in a sea of energy which will produce and 
maintain life. If we are in the sun, night and day, we 
are benefited by its power; even the darkness of night dif¬ 
fusing some of the rays around the globe. But let the moon 
step between us and the sun, even for the brief two hours 
of an eclipse, and the thermometer will drop six degrees; 
or at the rate of nearly seventy degrees in twenty-four 
hours; or a loss of 140 degrees in two days, or 280 de¬ 
grees in four days, provided there could be some means 




THE SUN 


hi 


of depriving this earth of the influence of the sun for that 
length of time. The densest clouds are but veils through 
which a very large proportion of light passes; but an 
eclipse is a shutting off of the sun itself. 

These facts are stated not to set up the supposition that 
the sun will be taken from us, but to show the close and 
never ceasing dependence of our lives on the central orb. 

Plants and human beings grow because they are pro¬ 
vided with the vitality that the sun sends to this earth. 
There is no other source of this or any other kind of 
vitality or life. We need the sun just as much and as con¬ 
stantly as we need our lungs, heart, brains, or body. If 
there were but one fire in a Siberian home, and that fire 
were to go out for an hour, all the people would die. The 
man who supplies the fuel to support the fire, must be on 
hand and attend to his duty all the time. So the sun is 
just as necessary every hour of the year and all through 
life, to supply the energy that makes things grow on this 
planet. 

As will be seen in other lessons the heat and the light of 
the sun are not enough of themselves to furnish life and 
growth. There is a mysterious something else that come 
to this earth in the rays. There is mechanical electricity, 
there is Life Electricity, there is dynamic force, and there 
is the pushing and the drawing vitality that invades every 
particle of matter and sets up an existence or a power 
within it. 


112 


THIRTY-NINTH LESSON 


“THE AIR” 


S N EVERY HAND the atmosphere is pressing itself 
to mold and fashion the forms of plant and animal 
life. Whatever floats in the heavens above our heads 
must have this air to breathe. Whatever lives in the sea is 
equally dependent on the same air, for the light flecks in the 
water are vent holes for the fish, giving them oxygen and 
nitrogen. The trees and plants not only inhale air through 
their leaves, but also take it in their roots. Let the surface 
of the ground be air tight and everything will die. Deep 
cultivation is so important that it takes the place of a large 
part of the fertilization needed, as it allows the nitrogen 
to reach the roots in greater quantity. 

We are fashioned after the breathing plant. 

The lungs, when held in reverse position, make the shape 
of a very good-looking tree; the bronchial tube is the main 
trunk or branch, and that is what it means; the smaller 
bronchial passages are the branches; the still smaller ones 
are the finer branches, then there are twigs and finally 
leaves. The millions of fine cells of the lungs breathe air 
like the leaves and foilage of trees and bushes. 

Chemically considered, air contains oxygen and nitrogen. 
But the chemist who prepares artificial air of these two 
compounds could not sustain either his own life of that 
of any plant or human being; for he has omitted something 
that chemistry tells us exists in the air, yet is not within 
the grasp of analysis. 

It is still that something that the sun gives out, and 
which is needed at all times for the maintenance of vitality. 
Air is impure that is chemically pure; just as water is a 
poison when it is chemically pure, or food is hurtful when 
it is absolutely pure. They all lack that something that 




THE AIR 


ii3 

the sun gives out, and that the air contains when it is rich 
in vitality, or food must have if Life Electricity is to be 
built up. 

The work of the chemist, therefore, is always short of 
life. He has never yet discovered the golden secret. 

But it is known to exist in the vitalized air, and to have 
come from the sun. These two facts long ago attracted the 
attention of the great gardeners of the world, and they 
have learned how to take advantage of their knowledge. 

It is not heat, it is not light, it is not water, it is not fer¬ 
tilization, it is not purity of air, that makes the spark of 
life take soul and come into an organism, but it is the sub¬ 
tle power of the sun imparted to the outdoor air in a state 
of vitality that accomplishes the sublime miracles of birth, 
of growth and of fruitage. 

This air is not indoors. 

It is in a state of nature and there it will remain as long 
as the earth continues to reel olf its days, and years, and 
its centuries. If you want this marvel of life, you must 
seek it in the free air out of doors; and you will find it 
nowhere else. 

Natural life is a sea of energy, containing the germs of 
unlimited variety in existence, that would cause a barren 
rock to soon teem with living species, if a vast conflagration 
were to exterminate the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
and all their seed. 

It is such a potent power as this that stands about us 
all the day and night, seeking to enter our own lives and 
become a part of our newer and more vigorous personality. 


“ASSOCIATE LIFE” 


S NE OF THE BASIC principles of glame states a 
well known truth in the following words: “ Plant 
life and human life depend on the same laws of vi¬ 
tality.” The importance of associating various kinds of 
plant life with each other, out of doors or indoors, has been 
recently learned by men who have been willing to spend 
years in experiments. 

Starting with the proposition that every living thing 
must be sufficiently and properly fed, we find that the 
greater number of plants or trees that are associated to¬ 
gether, the greater will be the vitality of all of them. 
This is true in every grade and scale of the vegetable 
kingdom. There are many counter influences at work, all 
of which must be taken into consideration. There must 
be plenty of air, and plenty of light, and plenty of root 
room, and plenty of ground for each specimen. A single 
tree or plant that is placed in extra rich soil and main¬ 
tained by high cultivation will do better than one in poor 
soil and left to itself, even though given associations. 

But when the conditions are equal, the specimen that is 
alone will not advance half as fast as one that is associated 
with others. 

This law is not only important, but is of extraordinary 
value in its application to both the vegetable and animal 
kingdom. It can be put to any test, and the more it is 
tried the greater will its meaning become. It is better 
understood in two divisions as follows: 

i. Under similar conditions a life that is separated from 
others will not possess half the vitality of a life that is 
associated with others. 

2 . A variety of associations will greatly increase the 
vitality of any life. 




ASSOCIATE LIFE 


ii5 

A garden that has but one plant will not yield as much 
in that plant as it would if there were others growing 
near it, provided the others were given the same proportion 
of nutrition, and other conditions are the same. 

When other plants are added and each receives the same 
amount of food and culture, all will do better by reason of 
the association. 

If those that are associated are of different varieties or 
kinds then the vitality of the whole garden is increased. 

Closeness of one plant to another may deprive each of 
light and of root room, as well as food; and these condi¬ 
tions must be avoided. 

A number of observers of the working of this law of 
association who have been surprised at what they have 
seen, sought an explanation in the theory that the greater 
abundance of plants produced more shade and moisture 
for the ground; but this claim has been disproved in several 
ways, principally by not allowing the shade from any one 
plant to reach another. 

In the lesson which is devoted to the “ morning of the 
year,” it is shown conclusively that growing life gave 
out vitality which all other life near it would absorb. 
Hospitals and sanatoriums have been placed near the salt 
water where the air was undoubtedly pure, and also near 
woods or forests where the air could not be purer; and, in 
every instance, it was found that the situation near the 
growing forest afforded vastly more vitality than near the 
sea. More than this, the younger the forest, the more 
vitality it gave forth. Fresh or new life inspires more 
life. This principle has been so thoroughly proved that it 
is an axiom to-day. Every person knows the appetizing 
and nutritive value of fresh young peas, or other product 
of the garden, as compared with foods that are old and 
stale. Fruits picked and eaten direct from tree or vine 
have much greater value than those that have been kept 
for hours or days. The ripe orange and banana eaten at 


ii6 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


the place where it is plucked, is a different product from 
that which is brought to us after days or weeks of keeping. 

Growing life has abundant vitality for itself if it is 
healthy, and as nature never measures her supplies exactly, 
she provides an excess which is thrown off for others to ab¬ 
sorb. Her bounty and wastefulness may be seen in the 
thousands of blossoms that appear on the fruit tree, and 
the few that remain in comparison. If all were to live the 
tree would not have room or power to hold them. As 
with blossoms, so with glame; the excess given to one plant 
is abundant for others; so that if any are weak or sickly 
they may be benefited. 

It is for this reason that the human being that spends 
the hours of the day in the midst of growing life, will 
draw a great amount of vitality from the latter. As the 
vitality is much greater in the “ morning of the day ” 
that is the most profitable time to devote to association 
with growing life. 

But variety is still more important. 

It is probably true that there are as many variations of 
glame as there are different kinds of plants; just as all hu¬ 
manity belong to the same general family, yet each one has 
some individuality different from all others. 

The ideal garden in which Life Electricity is most abun¬ 
dant is that which has all the ground cleanly cultivated, 
deep and free from weeds; in which there are some plants 
as small as eight or ten inches high; others, from a foot 
to fifteen inches high; others from two feet to three feet 
high; others from four to seven feet high; with a tree or 
two some distance away, and a vine or two at one edge, 
opposite the location of the tree. 

Some of the specimens may be evergreen, or all may be 
deciduous, but they must grow all the time. Those that 
begin late in the season or cease early in the summer are 
not the best. All should be capable of making vigorous 
growth. A little study will aid the law of selection. It 


ASSOCIATE LIFE 


117 


is a pleasure to plan and manage a small piece of ground, 
a spot on this planet where you may direct the powers of 
nature and draw the inspiration of a better life from them. 

An application of these laws to associations with human 
beings and animals proves the truth they convey. If you 
have healthy and well kept animals about you, something 
is gained, providing the diseases which dogs bring to 
children and adults can be avoided. They are faithful 
and noble companions, but some law is at work to make 
them sources of danger to the human race. Many mala¬ 
dies and contagions are carried about by dogs that run out 
of doors, and millions of graves are the penalty of this law. 
Rabies also is on the increase, with its terrible sufferings 
and cruel paroxysms through days and weeks of horrible 
torture. There seems to be some reason that is not yet 
understood why this noble animal, the dog, is an unsafe 
companion; and the time is not far distant when the 
spread of death through rabies will cause his extermination; 
for, as has been frequently stated, it is better that all ani¬ 
mals should perish than that one innocent child should be 
sent through the tortures of hydrophobia to a horrible 
death. 

The finer nature of the Angora or Persian cat, which is 
almost a dog, and which is as companionable as one and al¬ 
ways safe and gentle, appeals to those who love pets in¬ 
doors. Ponies and horses are also the very best of friends 
for children and adults. It is well known that health and 
vitality come from such association. In many cases, chil¬ 
dren have been advised by doctors to play with pet ani¬ 
mals; and men and women have likewise been told to de¬ 
vote several hours a day to the companionship of horses. A 
young woman who was an anaemic was advised to take 
riding lessons; the physician stating that the exercise would 
help her. She procured a small horse, one that was in 
perfect health and full of vitality. She became so attached 
to it that she fed and cared for it, and spent two or three 


n8 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


hours a day with it. Her health began to improve at once. 
Yet she did not take a lesson in riding nor mount at all. 
As she had been out of doors as freely before owning the 
horse, the change could not be assigned to outdoor air. 
Not at any time had she risen with the sun or been up 
early in the day. 

Outdoor life is splendid, but it may not be equal to the 
needs of some maladies. Outdoor life in the “ morning of 
the day ” is much better, but few will indulge in it, as 
they do not wish to rise so early. The next best effort is to 
devote some time to other forms of life. 

All things being equal, the man or woman who is about 
animals such as horses, cattle, Angora cats and any life 
that is healthy, will gain vitality that could not otherwise 
be secured. The question is asked, why are not farmers 
and their families healthier than they are, and the answer 
is found in the wretched hygienic habits that prevail on the 
farm; habits that would and in fact do kill them quickly 
if transferred to the city. They know but little of the 
daily or weekly bath; they buy the lowest grade of goods at 
the stores, and are made tools for the sale of everything 
that is cheap and adulterated there. Almost without ex¬ 
ception the baking powder sold to farmers is a slow but 
deadly poison. They use old and salted meats, having but 
little fresh animal food in the house. They sell milk and 
fresh eggs rather than add them to their diet. Then they 
work too many hours a day. We believe in country life, 
but do not believe in the drudgery that extends fourteen 
hours a day. Parents and children do a vast amount of 
hard work that could be lessened by the aid of intelligent 
management. 

Association with humanity is also helpful if had under 
conditions that are wholesome. To be alone is to dry up 
the fountain of life. Healthy children and adults are 
gainers in vitality by association, and give forth Live Elec- 


ASSOCIATE LIFE 


119 

tricity to those about them. The exchange is mutual when 
all parties are in good health. 

Parents who raise a family of children and then study 
their own and their offspring's health, will gain immensely 
by it. 

Sickly and weak persons should not be left alone, but 
should be placed constantly in the society of others who 
are well. The aged grandparent who is shut up in a room 
all the time, and mingles with others only at meal time, 
is not likely to remain long in this world. Loving chil¬ 
dren and grandchildren should take it upon themselves to 
bring out the old folks and give them some of the younger 
life about them. 

These facts are as old as life itself, but seem to have es¬ 
caped the attention of people of this age. 

Plant life and human life depend on the same laws of 
vitality. 

A plant or a human being that is separated from the lives 
of others will not possess half the vitality of a life that is 
associated with others, and this increase of Life Electricity 
is still further added to when the lives are of various kinds, 
either in the plant world or animal kingdom. 

Human beings are greatly benefited by association with 
plant life, if the latter is vigorous; and this gain is in¬ 
creased by association with animal or human life of any 
form that is vigorous also. 

These mighty truths make a lesson of tremendous value. 
They may be drawn into any human existence with very 
little care, provided they are fully understood, thought 
over, and appreciated. 


120 


FORTY-FIRST LESSON 


“VITAL PERIODS” 


PARTS of the day and year are set apart by 
nature for the beginning of new growth on a greater 
scale than that which may be called the average of 
the seasons. These special times are called vital periods. 
Thus the morning of every day in winter, summer, spring 
and autumn is more vital than any other part of the day 
in those seasons, but this does not mean that all vitality is 
withdrawn at other periods following or preceding the 
morning. A forenoon or afternoon in winter holds some 
natural power, but not by any means as great as that which 
is present in the first two or three hours after the sun 
comes up. 

From about the middle of the forenoon to mid-day, the 
vitality is at its average for the whole twenty-four hours. 
This fact has been clearly ascertained. After noon it is 
less. In the evening it is still less. During the night it 
is at its lowest. But there is some life in the air even at 
midnight. 

The same principle holds true of the days and weeks 
and months of the year. After the rest of the winter, 
spring wakes up with an excess of glame and this enters 
into all life and increases steadily until it reaches its cli¬ 
max near the end of June. But there is the average vital¬ 
ity in the later summer and early fall months; then it 
gradually wanes until it is stilled with the brooks and trees 
of winter, waiting for the voice of spring to call it to a new 
resurrection. 

As plant life thrives the best when it is kept in close 
companionship with nature and follows the vital periods 
in such a way that full advantage can be taken of the ex¬ 
cess, so humanity may learn to profit in like manner. 




121 


FORTY-SECOND LESSON 


‘THREE MORNINGS” 

» IFE ON EARTH has its night and its day. For 
the cessation of night there comes the dawn and the 
morning that ushers in the day. As every act is 
planned and prepared for a specific purpose, there is a mean¬ 
ing in these changes from one condition to another. 
Nothing happens by accident. The child could not be born 
if it had not been out of life to begin with; nor could 
spring come if winter had not preceded, nor the day climb 
the eastern sky if there had been no night. 

The office of spring is to start a new birth each year. 
Summer develops it, and autumn brings the era of ripening. 
Then follows winter with its chilling blasts. 

There are three mornings, and each of them brings a 
new birth, a new life, a new vitality and a new impulse 
into the world. The meaning of morning is birth, growth, 
energy and vitality. The old is thrust aside, and the new 
reigns in its place. Decrepitude and age stalk hand in 
hand to the grave, while youth typifies freshness and vigor. 
One is night, the other is morning. 

It is a rule of nature that the best energies are those 
that spring anew after a period of rest or depression. 
Some peculiar facts will be presented in the lessons that 
follow, illustrating this law. If there could be such a 
thing as an average of all the vitality of the year, and this 
could be evenly distributed throughout the twelve months, 
then each spring would hold a lessened degree of energy; 
while, one the other hand, the smaller amount of energy 
in winter must be balanced by an increased amount 
in spring. The latter proposition is a well known and ac¬ 
cepted fact. And this law applies to all similar successions 
of depression and awakening. There are three periods of 
excessive energy: 





122 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


1. “ The morning of life.” 

2. “ The morning of day.” 

3. “ The morning of the year.” 

Under normal conditions the supply of vital electricity 
is excessive during the period of each of these three morn¬ 
ings. Owing to their importance, a separate lesson will 
be devoted to every one of them. 

“ The morning of life ” begins as soon as the child is 
dependent on general foods, and extends to the day when 
active growth ceases. 

“ The morning of the day ” begins as soon as the eastern 
sky shows indications of paling or lighting up in faint de¬ 
gree, and extends to the hour when the sun is one-third up 
from the horizon towards the zenith. 

“ The morning of the year ” begins when vegetation takes 
on its first decided growth, and extends to the time when 
the excessive heat of summer is established; generally, in 
the temperate zone, including the months of May, June and 
July in the north; or March, April, May and June in the 
south; with gradations between these periods to suit the 
latitude. 

The summer solstice, which occurs on June 21, marks 
the climax of the sun’s advance, and is the longest day in 
the year. 


FORTY-THIRD LESSON 


“MORNING OF LIFE” 


f OUTH IS THE ONE great morning of human ex¬ 
istence. Out of nothing comes the child, endowed 
with the freshness of a gift from the skies. When it 
is given its normal constitution, it possesses a wonderful 
fund of vitality. But if weak and nervous parents have 
brought it into the world after bitterly opposing its arrival, 
then the child will have to fight its way up through barriers 
of poor blood and sickly flesh. Even then, if fed sensibly, 
its vital power will surmount all these obstacles and bring 
it into a healthy existence. 

Not one child in a hundred is sensibly fed, and the re¬ 
sult is the loss by death of a large proportion of infants and 
youth. Colic is the first cry of warning of the ignorance 
of parents and even doctors and trained nurses. Medicines 
and deadening drugs are given in place of proper diet. 
The latter quickly dispels suffering and brings into action 
the wonderful vitality of the child. 

Assuming that the conditions are normal, the super¬ 
abundance of Life Electricity in the morning of human ex¬ 
istence is a fruitful study. The mature person possesses 
enough to sustain daily losses for a number of years; after 
which there is a slow decay and ebbing of the fluid of life. 
But the child not only sustains all daily losses, and adds 
something to the growth of the body, but also carries an 
overflow of vitality that spends itself in many ways. 

More than two thousand years ago it was generally be¬ 
lieved that the secret of perpetual youth rested in associa¬ 
tion with children. The practice sprang up of old people 
sleeping in the same beds with the young; but as only one 
child was given to each adult, the result was the loss of 
health of the former; for it is well known that injury to 




124 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


the child always ensues when it is made a close companion 
of an aged person. The same belief and practice have 
claimed attention all through the centuries, even to the 
present day. 

There are now many adults who freely associate with 
children for the purpose of drawing vitality from the little 
ones. Much has been written on the subject. Opinions 
all agree that weak old persons are able to gain some de¬ 
gree of life in this way, but that the practice is injurious 
to children, unless the latter are in the best of health. 

This belief has been subjected to observation and test, 
with the result that proof has been secured that children in 
normal condition yield up vitality to weak adults. On the 
other hand there are vigorous adults possessing an exuber¬ 
ance of health that give it freely to weak children. 

But during the growing years of youth where good health 
is maintained, the boy or girl is robust beyond all com¬ 
parison with the relative condition of the mature man or 
woman. Then a lad gives off more so-called “ steam ” 
than a dozen men could absorb, and the girl outclasses her 
elders in the art of health. Owing to the open air life of 
boys they outrank their sisters in Life Electricity, and it 
is very difficult to find a fully robust maiden. A wrong 
diet and bad habits keep most persons weak and sickly. 
Youth, age and all classes suffer from these causes. 


125 


FORTY-FOURTH LESSON 


“MORNING OF THE DAY” 


@ IGHT BRINGS REST to all living things. Al¬ 
most without exception every form of life sinks to 
slumber and so remains until past the darkest hours 
of the night. The claim that plants grow after dark is not 
true, although they do in fact produce an abundant growth 
before breakfast in the morning. You can easily trace the 
dependence of shrubs, trees and all forms of vegetation on 
the movements of the sun. 

Deny the sun to any side of a tree and all other parts 
that are exposed to the influence of that orb will develop 
foilage, while the darkened side will not grow at all. 
Remove the mask at night, and follow this practice for 
months and years, and you will have a one-sided tree, show¬ 
ing that the day sun is necessary to the growth of it. 

Nature does in the summer months and throughout the 
open part of the year, the peculiar thing of throwing her 
light on all sides of every tree and plant that is exposed to 
her rays. Were it not for this fact, all things would be 
one-sided. 

During the day every plant lifts its leaves to the rising 
sun, and turns them about to follow the course of the orb 
as it sails through the sky. Some plants actually turn their 
heads, as in the case of the sunflower. In the afternoon 
you will see it incline toward the west and northwest where 
the sun sets, and there its head will rest until an hour or 
two after midnight. As soon as the eastern sky shows the 
slightest paling the sunflower becomes uneasy, and in some 
instances we have seen it facing fully to the east by the 
time the sun is up. The season of the year and the age of 
the plant have much to do with its response to the in¬ 
fluence of the great orb. 





126 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


In the morning of the year, when the season is not far 
advanced and plants are more dependent on the sun, they 
maintain habits that are not so pronounced later on. 

On very cloudy days their growth is checked in all sea¬ 
sons except in spring and early summer; showing the pres¬ 
ence of glame at this time. 

In the same period they acquire an impulse of glame 
that carries their vigor into the evening; but it is far more 
evident in the waking hours of the day. Observation 
proves that nearly every plant and tree advances ninety 
per cent of all its daily growth between the hours of three 
or four in the morning and the usual hour for breakfast 
in the fashionable home. This accounts for the fact that 
plants are said to grow at night. 

We have rose beds from which we cut more than three 
thousand roses in June. At night just before dark, all 
open flowers are taken off. At midnight no more are 
open, as may be ascertained by the aid of a lantern. In 
three or four hours the roses begin to spread their petals; 
but just as the sun is coming out of the east between four 
and five o’clock, the blossoms seem to pop open like bursting 
corn over a fire. In these few hours more roses develop 
than during the rest of the day. 

One of the basic laws of Life Electricity states that plant 
life and human life depend on the same laws of vitality. 

Therefore what is true of one class is true of the other. 

The hour of lowest energy is about midnight. In sum¬ 
mer the revival of power begins as soon as the sky shows the 
first signs of paling. The flood of new life seems to come 
with leaps and bounds while the sun is rising, and for 
hours afterward. Here are some facts that have been 
proved, despite the opposition to them on general theory 
from sources that held to old-fashioned ideas: 

A greenhouse that faces in such a way that its flowers 
receive the first light of day, and the first four hours of 
the sun, will produce greater results than a house that 


MORNING OF THE DAY 


127 


faces the south. In the spring such a greenhouse would 
face the east, but in June it would face the northeast. In 
winter it would face southeast. This would require a 
different house for each period of the year. 

Flowers and gardens that slope to the directions stated 
will give greater growth than any others, all else being 
equal. In fact it is a well tested rule that the summer 
morning sun, and the afternoon shade are best suited to 
nearly everything that grows out of doors. 

Good gardeners act upon these laws. 

In houses where people go to bed on the east side, they 
secure the afternoon shade in their rooms and the evening 
freedom from the hot west sky; while they are awakened 
by the first light of the new day if they permit such in¬ 
trusion. The southeast corner room is by far the most 
important sleeping room in the whole house; summer or 
winter. The next best location in winter is a south room, 
and in summer an east room. 

Added to these advantages, a second story piazza com¬ 
pletes the effectiveness of the hous plans, as it permits 
much time to be spent out of doors which would otherwise 
be denied. 

A person who makes use of these laws of extra vitality 
in the “ morning of the day ” will be improved in health 
of mind, nerves and body. A plant that is given such aid, 
responds very quickly; and we have often seen sickly plants 
that failed to revive and grow under other circumstances, 
take on life and vigor when favored in this way. It was 
this very spring that' a woman whose house garden was in 
the west room, and whose flowers were all alive but weak, 
was induced to move them to an east room, and they are 
now growing finely, as she expresses it. Yet they get the 
same amount of sun now that they did when they had the 
west sky before them. 

At all times of the year the east sun is of greater value 
than the west sun; but in the “ morning of the year ” the 


128 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


“ morning of the day ” becomes a hundredfold more im¬ 
portant when both are combined. 

In hospitals and sanatoriums where conditions are equal 
or relative, patients who have rooms on the east side of the 
buildings make fifty per cent more progress than those 
on the west, and twenty per cent more than those 
on the south side, while those on the north, if any, are at a 
still greater disadvantage. 

We have a record of over two thousand cases of sickly 
persons in private families who have suited their rooms to 
these laws, and who have made decided improvement from 
the change, after living in other parts of their homes. 

It cannot be ascribed to the sun alone. 

There must be something more than mere sunlight, for 
the same hours of the south sun, and the some hours of the 
west sun, will not produce the results that come from 
the “ morning of the day.” 

The explanation is this: 

The vitality of nature has been held in abeyance during 
the night hours. It has lessened. Life is weaker then. 
An average is maintained. What vitality is cut off in the 
night is made up by excessive vitality when morning comes. 
With the return of day, this excess is very great because 
nature seeks to supply all at once, or in the first few hours, 
the energy that has been withdrawn during the night. 
She maintains the average, but does so as soon as possible 
after the sun comes up. 


129 


FORTY-FIFTH LESSON 


“MORNING OF THE YEAR” 


cj^V^PRING is the period of awakening in outdoor life. 
All deciduous growth has spent its day and been car- 
ried down to earth, there to take part in the forma¬ 
tion of new soil. Then winter came and gave rest to the 
hardy plants and trees, while the frost or other agencies 
might play through the crust of loam that furnishes food 
for the vegetable world, and the better prepare it for the 
days ahead. 

When the sun began in September to take its course 
below the equator, it carried with it a constantly decreas¬ 
ing fund of vitality, and this loss continued until late in 
December. It is about the first of January that the days 
begin to grow appreciably longer, and even then it is only 
a small beginning. 

Cloudy days are dull days. Flowers, trees and all life 
feel the dreary change. A week of cloudy days means a 
setback to growth. In a greenhouse in winter, when the 
sun does not shine much for a month at a time, everything 
is held in abeyance. In the same month, with a bright 
daily sun, the advancement of growth is most pleasing. 

Out of doors in April in the north, and much earlier in 
the south, the sun rides high and the days are much longer 
than in December. In proportion as the earth is warmed 
by the approach of spring, all things will awaken and take 
on new impulses. 

The blood of the vegetable world is alive in the earth, 
and it mounts the stem of the plant, the trunk of the tree, 
or even the blade of grass. Come by accident into any 
part of an attractive estate, and note the quiet but powerful 
operations of nature at this time. The dead-looking vine 




130 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


is close at hand. There is not a leaf on it; nor the sign 
of one. The long canes are brown and dry, and lifeless to 
the touch. 

The sun comes up out of the east, several degrees to¬ 
ward the north. It is a chill spring morning. The dew 
hangs on the grass. The sky is clear and blue. There 
is no warmth anywhere. But the strong rays of the orb 
of day mounting fast into the far upper belt, seem to burn 
with a faint suggestion of what they intend to do in the 
following July. The dew fades away. The wind blows 
gently and the vane tells us it is from the south. We 
watch the brown-hued vine, and note no response in its 
dead-looking canes. 

Other days follow with sweet winds from the southland 
and warmer suns overhead; and soon the vines begin to 
take on color. The blood is traveling through them, seek¬ 
ing everywhere to find vents for expansion. Here, at the 
angle of a branch, something is seen that suggests the for¬ 
mation of a tiny bud. A few hours of watching will be 
rewarded; for the sap is being woven by the nitrogen of 
the atmosphere into the lace-work of a baby-leaf. 

Sun and vegetable-blood have united in the actual cre¬ 
ation of life. It is a miracle; nothing else. But here is 
another, and there another, and everywhere over the vine 
are others; soon to be so numerous that they cannot be 
counted. Stems are running into length and branches with 
other leaves are busy building up a most intricate growth 
in the weeks that follow. 

Then sweet blossoms put forth their almost invisible 
petals, and these are rich in the fragrance of small flowers 
from which the berries appear, and the vine hangs full of 
miniature bunches of grapes. These enlarge faster than 
one would suppose who does not watch them day by day. 
The new canes run many feet during the growing season, 
some fifteen to twenty-five before August. Leaves that 
were so small as to look like mere flecks of green in April, 


MORNING OF THE YEAR 


I 3 i 

are now wide spreading canopies that shield the berries 
from the burning sun and the mildewing rains. Then 
come the colors that mark the fruit; blue and purple, black 
and brown, red, pink, green, amber and many shades be¬ 
tween; all telling the story of selection and purpose in the 
great mind of nature. 

April is the springtime of the year, the morning of new 
life. 

The returning sun brings warmth and south winds. 

The earth gives up its blood under the influence of a 
power that controls the myriad miracles of new creation. 
Air and soil are now alert. It is not the skill of the 
chemist, but the wonder of life that has always evaded the 
search of the biologist that turns the clay and loam into 
material capable of building the temple of man. 

Dormant nature becomes dominant nature. 

Vitality is the expression of this power, and glame is the 
impulse that compels it to do its work. Vitality is seen 
at work in the new forms of growth; but glame comes 
from the sun and puts in that vitality the soul of purpose 
and the power of making energy live and build the many 
marvels of creation. 

It has long been known that the blood, the hair, the 
nails and all parts of the body, whether of man or beast, 
grow much faster in the growing months of nature than 
in all the rest of the year. Attention has been called to 
this fact in many works in the past. But experiment shows 
also that direct association with outdoor existence in the 
vital period of the year, adds still greater power to the life 
of the body. A third line of proof has been attained, 
which makes a distinction of the greatest importance be¬ 
tween the garden where growth is abundant and the 
barren places where it is weak. 

Close companionship with nature during the months of 
April, May, June and July, part of August and all of 
September when the second growth takes place, will impart 


132 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


vigor to the mind, to the nerves and the organic life of 
the body. But the companionship must be close; it must 
take place in the midst of the operations of actual growth. 
The grass, the shrubs, the plants, the vines, the trees are 
being led up out of the sleep of winter into a new-found 
energy. This energy is in the air. It is in everything. 
It can be felt as a distinct force touching the face, enter¬ 
ing the lungs at every breath, brightening the eyes and im¬ 
parting buoyancy to the blood and nerves. 

What better companionship is there in this world? 

Extremes are to be avoided. It is not sensible to go out 
in the dampness without sufficient clothing. It is better 
to be over-clad than to shiver. Activity of the body in¬ 
vites warmth and a good circulation of the blood. Still 
there will come the mild days when all the air is balmy 
and the verdure everywhere is sweet and pleasant, not a 
chill or damp feeling existing about you. Increasing warmth 
of sun and south wind brings increasing growth, and then 
the association with nature should be closest. 

One of the basic laws of glame is to avoid extremes. 

Cold may be endured by persons of good health; and 
also dampness; but not by those who are seeking health. 
Likewise the extreme heat of summer, especially between 
the hours of ten and four o’clock in the day, should be 
studiously avoided unless the blood and organs are trained 
to it. 

April, May and June are the golden months of glame; 
for they are the most active in growth. To be compelled 
to live in the city is a misfortune. Many who dwell in 
the country are either ignorant of the blessings that are 
at hand, or else they have duties that cannot be neglected. 
This too is a misfortune. But most country homes are 
not situated in the midst of growing nature. Grass is 
not of itself sufficient. It is something, but must be cut 
three times a week and the fallen blades must be allowed 
to remain on the ground where they give their life to the 


MORNING OF THE YEAR 


133 


air and soil without choking the verdure that carpets the 
lawn. But even this is only part. Plants of various sizes 
are needed. Shrubs and vines and trees must be given 
luxuriant life. There should be scores or even hundreds 
of these teeming with the vital impulses of spring and early 
summer, in the midst of which you should spend every 
pleasant minute of the day from the earliest morn until the 
sun sinks to rest at night. 

We know that this is not possible in most cases. 

The right thing to do is impossible in the practical lives 
of men and women. Yet when the natural law is under¬ 
stood and appreciated it is given some attention when cir¬ 
cumstances permit, until at last it actually changes the cus¬ 
toms of the people. 

This principle is not theory, for it has been given full 
test for more than thirty years; not in a few isolated cases, 
but in thousands of families that were so situated that they 
could make use of it. 

Nervousness, and its sad consequence, neurasthenia, have 
been completely cured by adopting the open life in the 
three months of April, May and June; and what has been 
accomplished in this brief term of the year has remained a 
permanent cure except where wanton abuse of the health 
has followed. 

The organic life of the body and the blood as well as 
every function will find prompt improvement under the in¬ 
fluence of glame that is very abundant in the growing 
months where there is a large amount of verdure and foli¬ 
age taking on new existence. This fact has never been 
doubted when full test is given to the principle. There are 
many well-known proofs of the abundance of glame at 
such a time and place. 

Doctors who have watched the development of diseases 
of the lungs, heart and nerves, and who have studied the 
methods employed in effecting cures, find that hospitals, 
sanatoriums and homes that are located close to a forest 


134 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


of young and rapidly growing trees, will bring relief and 
strength much more readily than those located away from 
such growth. It has been supposed that evergreen forests 
are still better adapted to the same end; but old and worn 
out forests have very little value. A young deciduous for¬ 
est is by far the best, although evergreens are also advan¬ 
tageous when they are not old and decaying. 

In a recent meeting of experts in these diseases, the 
question was asked, What is the ideal location for a sana¬ 
torium? Every doctor demanded as the first requirement 
the presence of a large lot of young and vigorously growing 
trees, with lawns, vines and shrubbery close at hand in 
abundance. “ Where nature is sending life into plants and 
trees, there the human body will find superabundant vital¬ 
ity,” was the statement of a leading expert. 

Rank weeds and decaying vegetation are not suited to 
the health of mankind; but these generally follow the grow¬ 
ing months; and even then may be easily controlled by 
taking them to the compost heap to rot under cover of a 
layer of loam. But pure culture of land knows no weeds. 

In the spring the blood is built anew when one is in 
the country or in the garden, orchard, field or forest where 
there is plenty of growing life in nature. 

The poet who declared that the young man’s fancy 
lightly turns to thoughts of love in the spring, was merely 
stating a physiological truth. The impulses of heart and 
desires are much stronger in the spring, if open air and 
vigorous growth in the vegetable kingdom combine their in¬ 
fluences in the existence of the individual. 

Every person who has raised poultry knows the value of 
the spring in securing chickens. Eggs are much more 
numerous then. Natural hatching is safer and more profit¬ 
able. The poultry that is secured in the early spring 
months will be more vigorous than at any other time of 
the year. Summer is warmer, and the chicks do not catch 
cold then; but they will be more delicate than those that 


MORNING OF THE YEAR 


i35 


are born in April and May. There is an excess of vitality 
in the air. Another fact is interesting. When the poul¬ 
try yards have no grass, no shrubs and no trees near by, 
the young fowl will not do as well. This has been many 
times put to test. We recall three cases where poultry 
had the most careful attention, but did not acquire health. 
The runs were barren. The same poultry colonies were 
moved to runs that had grass, shrubs and trees, and at 
once the results changed for the better. These three cases 
occurred in three sections of the country and in different 
years; showing a uniformity of the principle. 

The same law holds good in all the species. 

A clear proof of the presence of glame in the growing 
months of spring was shown recently in the case of the 
young woman who was dying of nervous prostration. She 
had traveled in search of a cure, and had spent the previous 
summer in the best known of the curative resorts of 
Europe; but steadily grew weaker. It had been her habit 
to live in the house in the winter and spring, and go to 
the country in the summer. She had the means to pay for 
anything that could be of help to her; and under our sug¬ 
gestion she sent out an agent to find her a place in the 
midst of growing gardens, and there she made her home by 
day and night. She over-clothed herself to keep off all 
chilling winds. She went to a private estate, and remained 
there during the months of April, May and June, when she 
went away completely cured. That she ascribed her recov¬ 
ery solely to the glame in the growing months, may be seen 
from the fact that she has formed what she calls a partner¬ 
ship with nature, and ha§ a home of her own in the country 
where gardens are profusely stocked with foliage. She says 
now that she is profoundly happy, and never knew before 
that earth could be made into a paradise. 

Many tests have been made with the finger-nails, com¬ 
paring their growth in each month of the year. They actu¬ 
ally grow fifty per cent faster in the period stated than in 


136 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


the winter. But they are even more vigorous if the time is 
spent in the midst of growing nature. 

Similar experiments have been made in the growth of the 
hair. Let a person be kept in the city in the spring months, 
especially in the house, and the hair will not make half the 
growth that it will out of doors in the country amidst the 
luxuriant foliage of nature. 

Can this law of glame be given practical application on 
the lives of men and women? 

The answer is this: If you cannot adopt the principle 
at this time, you may be able to do so sooner or later. 
Many families have given up their city homes for those in 
the country. Men whose millions enable them to live in 
palaces in cities, are seeking the open life of the country, and 
find it more advantageous in every way. They are building 
splendid homes in the very lap of nature. Thousands of 
wealthy families live in the country'the whole year round. 

But people of limited means will find both the way and 
the desire to enter into this glorious partnership with na¬ 
ture. Changes will come about slowly, but surely. 


137 


FORTY-SIXTH LESSON 


‘‘JUNE CELEBRATION 



HEN THE SUN reaches its climax of power on 
the twenty-first day of June, it brings us the 
longest day and the shortest night. This event 
is known as the summer solstice. The month which con¬ 
tains this honor is the best of all the year. The queen of 
flowers, the rose, is then in all its glory. Life both in the 
animal and the vegetable world is at its zenith. Nature is 
most beautiful. 

But Life Electricity in plant and in man as well is also 
at its height. Glame is superabundant. Climaxes are nu¬ 
merous. The longest day, the shortest night, the goal of 
glame, the greatest vigor of energy, all combine to make 
June the supreme month of all the year. 

Pent-up vitality, which all winter has been in abeyance, 
is not let fully loose, and what has been lost during the 
dead months is being made good in order that the average 
of the year may be maintained. 

This law has been seen at work in the “ morning of the 
day ” when the suspended vitality of the night is being 
made up by the extra vigor of the first hours after sunrise. 

The principle is one of the marvels of nature. It should 
be well understood by all who study these lessons. 

There is a certain amount of vital energy for the whole 
year. If there were no winter and no summer, this energy 
would be maintained at its yearly average, and there would 
be no excess in the spring to make extra growth. But as 
it is suspended for many months, it makes up the loss by 
an excess of vitality in the first months of the growing period 
which we call the “ morning of the year.” 

This principle accounts for the excessive vitality in the 
“ morning of the day ’’/also. 





LIFE ELECTRICITY 


133 

Let us see if a comparison will make it clearer. 

Water flows at the rate of a thousand gallons a day along 
a small brook. As there is no interruption, it maintains a 
fixed hourly average. This means that the same quantity 
of water goes through the brook every hour and every part 
of the day. But a boy comes along and stops its flow to a 
great extent, thereby storing up behind a temporary dam 
nearly half of the day’s supply. Then all at once he lets 
it go by removing the dam, and the stream flows along in 
a torrent until the excess has gone on, when it settles down 
to its average. 

Nature does the same thing with its vitality. There is 
an ebb and a flow as in the tides. 

It suspends or holds it back during the night, and lets it 
go in greater quantity during the first hours of the morn¬ 
ing. Then the same thing occurs in winter and spring; 
the checking of the supply, and the excess when it starts 
free again. 

These propositions are fully sustained by the well known 
facts. 

The question arises, whether growth would or could take 
place if there were no excess of Life Electricity every spring, 
and each morning. The growth that occurs during the 
day and in the first half of the night is so slight that some 
investigators are of the opinion that it could not possibly 
suffice to maintain the needs of humanity. 

From the middle of the forenoon until after the sun 
reaches its zenith, the average vitality of the twenty-four 
hours is maintained; but the amount of growth is much 
less than the average requirements. This would indicate 
that an even average all through the day and night wmuld 
not furnish the impulse of great growth that is demanded 
by the forms of existence on this planet. 

It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the suspension 
of vitality that occurs from about noon until near morn¬ 
ing, is a wise provision of nature to impel the vigor of 


JUNE CELEBRATION 


139 


growth that attends the greater energy of the “ morning of 
the day.” 

Observation and tests prove that the following relative 
flow of Life Electricity and vitality occurs during the twen¬ 
ty-four hours. 

First period, or the “ morning of the day,” begins when 
the eastern sky begins to pale or light up, and extends to 
the time when the sun is one-third up from the horizon to¬ 
wards its zenith. 

Second period begins when the sun is one-third up and 
ends at high noon. 

Third period runs from noon until sunset. 

Fourth period runs from sunset until the next morning, 
ending when the east begins to light up. 

During the first period the flow of Life Electricity is ex¬ 
cessive. 

During the second period the flow of Life Electricity is 
normal or the average. 

During the third period it is weak and depressed. 

During the fourth period it is nearly suspended. 

The same laws and principles prevail during the year, 
June being the month of climax. 

All life, whether of the animal or vegetable kingdoms, is 
affected by these changes in the flow of Life Electricity. 

As there is no normal existence except out of doors, so 
it is necessary to be out of doors in order to come in con¬ 
tact with the excessive flow of Life Electricity, both in the 
“ morning of the day ” and “ morning of the year.” For 
this reason the “ June Celebration ” has been established as 
a means of furnishing practical and actual proof of the 
enormous benefits that are to be derived from association 
with nature in this the best month of all the year and dur¬ 
ing the best hours of the day. 

The “ June Celebration ” includes thirty days of early 
rising; and only thirty in the whole year. It therefore 
differs from the old demand to get up before the sun every 


140 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


morning, month in and month out. That is a hardship, and 
is precluded by the customs of society. 

But thirty days in the year can be observed by every per¬ 
son who seeks a better vitality. What it has accomplished 
is worthy of attention at this time. Let us tell you. The 
“ June Celebration ” consists of a partnership with nature 
during the “ morning of the day ” in the climax month of 
the “ morning of the year,” which is June, and during 
which combination of periods nature is over-charged with 
an excessive degree of vitality known as Life Electricity. 
This partnership requires that you be dressed and out of 
doors at that time in the morning when the east begins to 
pale or light up. It also requires that you spend the time 
in the midst of growing nature, and that you be gently ac¬ 
tive. The stomach should have nothing in it except two 
glasses of pure cold water, drank slowly while dressing. 
This washes out the stomach and the alimentary canal, 
thereby purifying it for the breakfast that is to follow. 
Persons of all classes and conditions of health have observed 
these requirements and have in all instances been wonder¬ 
fully benefited. Here is a summary of the gains that have 
been made:— 

1. A keen, sharp, normal appetite has been established. 

2. The alimentary canal has been cleansed of ferment, 
poisons and membranous irritation, all of which interfere 
with nutrition. 

3. The worst cases of indigestion have been completely 
cured. 

4. Nervousness, and especially neurasthenia has been 
wholly overcome, and a new power of the nervous system 
has been attained. 

5. Constipation and all clogged conditions have been 
overcome. 

6. The lungs and respiratory organs have been given 
great vigor and vitality. 


JUNE CELEBRATION 


141 

7. The heart has been made much stronger and the blood 
freed from the debris which impedes its perfect circulation. 

8. A feeling of new life has been acquired which enters 
into all the duties of the day, and remains for weeks and 
months. 

9. Above all, the disposition, the moods, the mind and 
the ethical character undergo radical changes for the better; 
proving that men and women who spend these hours in¬ 
doors and asleep in bed, are not normal in their habits. 

Surely nature that puts plant life to sleep at night and 
calls it into its wonderful awakening at the first break of 
day, intends that humanity should share in these blessings. 

During the month, if you take part in the “ June Cele¬ 
bration,” you should adopt a careful diet based on the rules 
of this system of lessons, and your habits should conform as 
nearly as possible with those prescribed in this book. 

For the first few June mornings you will be fatigued; 
but this is due to the sudden adoption of a regime to which 
you are not accustomed. After a few days the weariness 
will pass away under the vigor of the new found Life Elec¬ 
tricity, and a new existence will seem to open to you. If 
you have rain garments, you should be up and out every 
day even if the weather is inclement. Glame comes down 
from the clouds, for the vapor of the sky is shining under 
the morning sun despite the fact that the dark side may be 
turned toward the earth. June rains are most vitalizing. 

You should remain out of doors until the “ morning of 
the day ” comes to an end, which will be when the sun is 
one-third up the eastern sky. A seven o’clock breakfast, or 
one at eight, will be highly prized as the state of your appe¬ 
tite will convince you. Then every particle of food will 
make pure blood and a pure body. 

God is a multiple being,^and is the Creator of the earth, 
the sun and the life that is poured into this planet. He 
comes with abundant presence at the time when nature is 
most active in its operations, for these He has established 


142 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


in order that progress may be made in every form of life. 
A deeper study, technically known as psychic telepathy,* 
announces the revelation that “ God walks in the morning 
of the day during the morning of the year, and the man or 
woman who would feel His presence must enter the garden 
where the marvels of life are bursting into miracles of 
growth and beauty.” 

A June morning is a wonderful morning. 

It is too late for the chilling winds of spring, and too 
early for the hot blasts of summer. The air is full of life 
and free from the depression that attends the excessive heat 
of the months that follow. The sky is a picture of change. 
Winter has been rolled back to the icy north, and summer 
waits at the southern portals. 

There is a freshness in the breezes that sweep the earth, 
a satisfying purity of atmosphere, a sweetness in foliage and 
flower. 

At the first signal in the sky when the east begins to pale, 
all nature seems to rouse itself with a sudden impulse. 

The dark banks lower and fall beneath the horizon; a 

delicate pink flush creeps up over the air and mounts to the 
fading stars, exchanging color and hue with those sleepy 
orbs, now too weary to twinkle. Feathers of fine clouds, 

pillows of vapor, islands of mist floating in a gray sea are 

silvered by the flooding light that spreads rapidly from a 
broad expanse far under the earth to the sky above. 

A delicate lace of woven tints is now drawn over the 
face of the east, through which is seen a garden of roses 
dripping with gold and pearls, amid bowers of crimson foli¬ 
age that rise from purple banks. A molten river runs 
along the horizon’s edge, changing to gleaming fires that 
light up the sky in a general conflagration, whereupon the 
sun rises from its rosy bed and proclaims the new born day. 

* Reference is made to Psychic Telepathy in the final pages 
of book of “UNSEEN POWERS” issued by Ralston Pub¬ 
lishing Co., Washington, D. C. 


JUNE CELEBRATION 


143 


Such a picture is seen only in the month of June. Each 
morning brings a more entrancing panorama, as if to chal¬ 
lenge the power of multitudinous change in form and color, 
the illimitable variety of nature’s contribution to the world 
of beauty. 

From the glories of the eastern sky we turn to those of 
field and garden; and all about us we see the works of a 
higher power that Lowell felt when he conceived his poem 
from which we may aptly quote: 

“ Oh! what is so rare as a day in June? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days; 

Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune. 

And over it softly her warm ear lays. 

Whether we look or whether we listen, 

We hear life murmur or see it glisten; 

Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, grasping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.” 


144 


FORTY-SEVENTH LESSON 


“GLAME IN THE SOIL’ 

8 T NO TIME in the history of human life has vital¬ 
ity been at so low an ebb as at the present day. 
There are men who attribute this condition to the 
weakness of the earth’s soil. Investigation shows that man 
and earth are suffering together by coincidence. It is true 
that the vitality of the soil has decreased and is constantly 
decreasing. 

What is known as virgin soil has almost disappeared 
from the face of the globe. When the first settlers made 
farms in America, they had no occasion to fertilize the land, 
although the Indians had cultivated some of it for countless 
centuries. Field and forest, slope and valley were full of 
power capable of sustaining heavy crops for generations. 

In the broad prairies of the West the thick crust of rich 
loam seemed almost inexhaustible. In some places crop 
after crop was put in for many years and nothing paid 
back to the soil. The corn sprang out of the ground as if 
by magic, and the month of June usually witnessed stalks 
as tall as a man, so quick and luxuriant was the growth. 
Little by little the accumulated richness of the loam was 
lessened, the stalks became shorter, and fertilizers were in 
demand. Then the cost of farming advanced and the 
profits grew small. Since it is a well established fact that 
the use of commercial fertilizers weakens the vitality of the 
soil and compels a steady increase of this artificial supply, 
the difference between nature and science is understood by 
both the farmer and the investigator. 

If we seek the remedy we must find it in one way only; 
and that is by increasing the supply of vegetation on the 
globe. 

Leaf mold has no parallel in value, and the fallen grasses 
of the prairies exceed all fertilizers as a source of nutrition 




GLAME IN THE SOIL 


145 


or vitality in the soil. The idea of turning under clover 
crops or pea crops is not new, but it is being given more 
attention now than at any time in the past. 

The body of the animal is fed by food that comes from 
the dirt at the surface of the earth. But this dirt of itself 
cannot sustain life. Yet when the foliage of growing 
plants has been turned green by the direct action of the 
sun’s rays, the chlorophyl that is thus created instantly 
changes the dirt into food value. It is this value that is 
needed by humanity and all the forms of life below that 
species, as well as by the land itself. It is this value that 
nature spent countless ages in establishing in the soil and 
that man has extracted in large degree in the past few 
centuries. To offer nature nothing but gases and fertilizers 
is not repayment. 

Fields that can be spared for a year should be given 
heavy crops of clovers or peas, and these should be plowed 
under just at the time they are beginning to blossom. One 
man had an exhausted farm that was regarded as useless. 
He gave it ten years of crimson clover, each year plowing 
the crop under. For many years thereafter it had all the 
vitality of virgin soil. 

If a tree were planted in the barren or half-barren places 
at the rate of one tree a year for every man, woman and 
child in America, in ten years there would be about one 
billion new trees. Their leaves would fall by their sides, 
or be scattered over adjacent ground and there help to 
make virgin soil. The burning of leaves, brush and weeds 
is robbing nature of one of her most important gifts. 

It is conceded that the vegetation of the earth has fallen 
away ninety per cent since the most recent geological 
period. Only one part in ten remains. The inroads made 
on the virgin soil in the last fifty years may be easily seen 
in all the great fields of the once fertile West. Vegetation 
includes all that grows that is not of the animal kingdom. 
Its duty is largely to develop nitrogen, the fabric in chemis- 


146 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


try out of which the human body is woven and constructed. 
Now three facts coincide: 

1. The loss of ninety per cento of the vegetable produc¬ 
tion of the soil is well established. 

2. The unusual and remarkable loss of vitality in the 
human body has already been fully proved. 

3. The chief product of vegetation, which is nitrogen, 
has been reduced to such an extent as to attract the atten¬ 
tion of biologists. So conservative an author as Dr. Emil 
Koenig says, “ The chemical and physical alterations of na¬ 
ture are distinct and decided.” By well attested facts he 
goes on to assert that there is no hope for a change in a 
better direction, as life is everywhere tending toward de¬ 
cadence; and he expresses the opinion that the earth will 
soon pass by rapid changes that may not last more than a 
few years, toward the condition of the orb that floats near 
our own earth,— a dead world. 

We do not believe that this end is the doom of the 
globe. Whether it is possible, need not be discussed. Even 
assuming that such a fate may await the earth, and, as has 
been stated by another biologist, “ it may transpire in the 
twinkling of an eye,” we nevertheless believe that there are 
men and women thoughtful enough to give heed to the de¬ 
mands of nature, and aid in reversing the conditions that 
now prevail. 

The trouble lies in the millions of acres of once rich 
fields, now barren; and in the other millions of acres of 
ancient forests, now useless stumps. Through the leaves 
of new millions and even billions of trees, and through the 
foliage and structure of green crops, the nitrogen can be 
restored to the earth in great abundance. Chemical nitro¬ 
gen does not take its place. Nature must be organized in 
life. 

Every leaf that is burned, every stalk and stem and root 
of vegetation that is destroyed by fire, is an act of rob¬ 
bery of nature. Imagine all the leaves that fall from a 


GLAME IN THE SOIL 


147 


rich forest to the ground each year, being hauled away and 
burned, and compare the empty gases that are set free with 
the abundance of leaf mold that the same foliage would 
have made had it been allowed to return as soil to mother 
earth, and you see one of the causes that are reducing the 
vitality of the earth, the nitrogen in nature and the energy 
of life in man. 

We speak of nitrogen as the chief result of vegetation. 
But there is something more in such growth. When the 
sunlight falls on the young leaf and day by day forms a 
union with its green coloring matter, chlorophyl, a new 
force in nature is being created which is as mysterious and 
marvelous as the most astounding miracle. 

This new creation is food for the human body. It is a 
power that no chemist can bring into being by any art or 
skill within his world of experiment. In this new creation 
is an abundance of vitality that is breathed through the air, 
that permeates the water, that dwells in the soil and feeds 
energy to all that come in contact with its zone of exist¬ 
ence. Just as the healthful child gives out health, or the 
vigorous animal imparts the same quality, or the new growth 
in spring exhilarates all life that lives in it, so the super¬ 
abundance of vegetation is fraught with blessings to all hu¬ 
manity. 

As against this richness of life, compare the food that is 
extracted from a scanty soil by the artificial processes of 
fertilizers, and the reluctant obedience of nature. Compare 
the vegetables raised on the sands of Florida with the prod¬ 
uct of the virgin soil elsewhere. One is tough and al¬ 
most tasteless; the other is succulent and inviting to the 
appetite. One weakens the stomach and fails to satisfy the 
demands of the body; the other is useful in the highest 
degree as food. 

Thinking people may not do much toward changing the 
conditions that now prevail, but they will do something. 
Little by little there will come over the mind of the 


148 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


thoughtful person the belief that something must be done; 
and results will follow. It is not expected that there will 
be a mighty uprising of new habits. But the simple meth¬ 
ods stated in this chapter already are being employed to 
some extent, and are believed in by all persons who have 
given the matter any study at all. 

The product of plant life is the richest fertilizer known, 
but it takes time to get it. A year is lost in raising crops 
to plow under, and decades are required to re-establish the 
forests; but herein are the means of restoring the vitality 
that the world needs and must have if a change for the 
better is to be secured. 

Fire is the greatest enemy of the soil when it burns either 
tree or weeds, except under the law of necessity. What¬ 
ever grows in the soil or comes from it, should be put back 
as a substance and not as a gas. Every year the great cities 
burn, as a total, millions of tons of garbage that, if left to 
decay, would sustain an enormous area of the earth’s sur¬ 
face and produce vegetation of inestimable value. Here is 
a loss that cannot be recovered. 

People seem to forget that this globe was for a great 
length of time left wholly to the myriad forms of animal 
and vegetable life with which it teemed, in order that the 
soil might be produced from which man would spring and 
be supported. All that gives him existence now is the re¬ 
sult of the decay of such accumulations from the long past. 
Had they not preceded him, he never would have been born. 

Why should this lesson be forgotten? 


149 


FORTY-EIGHTH LESSON 


“GLAMELESS CITIES’’ 


^g^pl|EOPLE who live in the cities will move into the 
country in great numbers. A new exodus is com- 
ing. There is at work in the operations of nature 
a power that is felling human life as the axe of the settler 
once felled the trees of the forest. The death rate aver¬ 
ages the same throughout the years of a generation, for the 
reason that as many people as are born will die. The death 
rate sooner or later is bound to be one hundred per cent. 
But lives are being cut off long before they have run their 
span. Membranous diseases of grip, pneumonia, typhoid 
and appendicitis are increasing rapidly every year. 

The reason for this is because human vitality is getting 
less and less every year. Every doctor knows this fact. 

During the past decade or two there has been an exodus 
from the farms and from the towns and villages; all headed 
for the big cities. Immigrants have added to the numbers 
until the great centers are congested with humanity. The 
farms are being deserted at the rate of hundreds every year. 
There are now sixty thousand empty farms, most of which 
are capable of affording an independent income to men who 
will cultivate them. But the hope of higher wages in the 
cities has led the young and the middle-aged country people 
out of the only places on this earth where they may be in¬ 
dependent. 

What is the result? 

The farmers who stay at home cannot get help, and they 
are unable to carry on their work alone. Even the rich 
lands of the West are crying for assistance, while the mil¬ 
lions of men in the cities are marching through the streets 
demanding work under threats of violence. 

Where is the fault? 




LIFE ELECTRICITY 


150 

There are five million men out of work in the cities at 
this writing. At the same time there are five million men 
needed the year round on the good farms that will yield 
paying crops if cultivated. The five million men in the 
great cities that are out of work will not go to the farms. 
But they demand charity. They seek food and shelter and 
clothing. They blame the political parties for their mis¬ 
haps. They beg and demand and threaten. They are 
filled with hatred for the prosperous classes who saved in 
times of plenty or who have given their toil and their brain 
power to the task of achieving success. 

There are to-day in this land more than one million 
farmers who are worth more than five thousand dollars, all 
of which they have made by careful management of their 
farms. Other millions of men could make as much money 
on farms if they chose to do so. If they remain in the 
cities they will get work during good times and will be out 
of work in dull times; between which periods they will 
spend all they receive, and will be as poor fifty years hence 
if they live as they are to-day. 

In order to appease the bearers of the empty dinner pail, 
all sorts of remedies are suggested; the most pronounced 
of which is the spending of public moneys for the purpose 
of supplying work for brief periods of time to these idle 
millions in the cities. Charity, which is commendable when 
it combines relief and the prevention of poverty, is invoked 
to support these idle millions for months in every year. 

In a city parade not long ago in which thousands of men 
and women marched through the streets, a banner carried 
the words: “ we are willing to work, but cannot get 
work to do.” And a second banner bore the words: 
“ THESE STRONG MEN ARE SEEKING WORK. WHO IS TO 
BLAME? ” 

At the same time nearly all the papers of the land were 
printing the following statement, which investigation 
proved to be strictly true: “ In one State alone there are 


GLAMELESS CITIES 


151 

27,000,000 acres of tillable land, and only 6,000,000 acres 
of it are under cultivation. Farms can be had for 
the asking. Many other States have immense tracts of 
land that require only men and women to convert them into 
fruitful harvests. If there could be some mighty force that 
would scatter the excessive population of the cities to the 
farms that are in need of them, this country would receive 
a forward impetus unmatched in the world’s history.” 

Who is to blame for the idleness, poverty and suffering 
in the great cties? 

But wage-earners demand more cash income than they 
can get in the country. They in fact get nothing in the 
cities, unless they have steady work the year round. The 
man who is idle a large part of the year, has nothing at 
the end. Discontent follows, and discontented people are 
everywhere a menace to themselves and to the public. 

The country air and the more wholesome habits that are 
possible in farm life, may or may not help to throw off 
discontent; but it is absolutely certain that people have no 
chance whatever of finding content in the city, while they 
have abundant opportunity to secure it in the country if 
they are so disposed. 

Less ethical but more practical perhaps in their value are 
other causes that make city existence detrimental to an ideal 
life on earth. 

Outdoor air has no glame in the cities; but in the country 
it is almost always teeming with it, although more so in the 
growing months of the year. 

Indoor air in the country may have what is called sec¬ 
ondary glame; there is no glame of any kind whatever in 
the city, except on rare occasions in the spring and occa¬ 
sionally in the sharp, clear days of winter. 

In the country the freedom of the outdoor air serves 
to purify the stale atmosphere in doors; but in the city the 
use of gas and the impurity of outdoor air make it impossi¬ 
ble to get pure indoor air. 


152 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


The soil of the cities is saturated with foul and dead ma¬ 
terial long since stagnant. If any of it may be left un¬ 
covered by walks or paving, there is none of the sweeten¬ 
ing of the soil by wholesome and abundant growth. 

The streets where not paved are constantly emitting in¬ 
visible vapors or gases; and where paved they retain the 
odor and offenses of animal excretions which rise on every 
sunny day to enter the nostrils of those who seek the out¬ 
door air for health. This is the kind of atmosphere that 
comes in at the open window by day or night. No mat¬ 
ter how often or how carefully the streets may be swept, 
these poisonous gases are there and will rise. 

Dust from the streets of the city, no matter what may 
be the condition of the streets to the eye, will find its way 
to the clothing, to the hands and face, to the rooms within 
the homes, to the curtains, drapery and carpets; and if you 
will find any particle of street dust, no matter how small, 
that does not contain germs of disease, you will be the 
marked man of the age. 

This city dust is made by the grinding of urine and 
manures in the offal of dead life that sooner or later gets 
to the street, and is enhanced by the droppings of birds, 
mice, rats, cats, dogs and insects, becoming the abode of 
bacteria of almost every kind of prevailing disease. When 
this mixture is ground into an almost invisible powder, it 
rises on every current of air and will get to the house in 
spite of all efforts to keep it out. It lodges on the food, 
in the milk, in the drinking water, on the dishes, on the 
clothing, on the bed, on the carpets, and everywhere. If 
you shake the lace draperies, you will set free countless 
germs of disease to be inhaled all day and all night long. 
If you sweep the carpets, you will set free many more, which 
will float in the air and travel all over the house to find 
lodgment wherever they may alight. 

No wonder the doctors say that diseases are nearly all 
originated in the house. 


GLAMELESS CITIES 


153 


If you live in the country, you will have almost none of 
the foul dust that is made in the cities. In the country if 
you have the large open fire toward which all currents of 
air tend, the germs will be destroyed in case they enter the 
house. Thus you have two good influences at work. 

Dust from the city streets that does not show to the eye, 
so finely is it ground by the travel over it, carries so many 
germs of disease that they are uncountable. One tiny fleck 
may convey thousands of such germs. 

The absence of glame from the air, combines with the 
abundance of harmful agencies surrounding humanity in the 
cities to destroy life and health. 

The time is not far distant when the exodus will begin 
from the cities and will trail all through the land to the 
farms. 

The hand of the clock is pointing to twelve; it will soon 
strike. When it does, Father Death with his sickle in one 
hand and his axe in the other will make wide swaths in the 
forest of humanity now dwelling in the cities. Those who 
die will not learn the lesson that God is about to teach; 
nor will those who survive rouse themselves to believe that 
it is a lesson until the endless processions of hearses with 
few carriages will show them the will of the Almighty 
Power. 

Even then the survivors will learn slowly, for it is the 
most fixed trait of the human mind to remain indifferent to 
the lessons taught by diseases and epidemics. The grand 
army of the unemployed in the cities will be given all the 
work they can do in helping to bury the dead. 

This is no picture of the fancy. It is the truth, as events 
now moving rapidly to a climax will soon verify. Doctors 
know what fearful inroads of life have been made in the 
past year alone by the onward march of one disease, the 
grip. Yet this is a membranous malady caused solely by 
dust and caught indoors in the city, or else in very dirty 
rooms in the country. No matter how cleanly the house 


154 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


may be swept and cared for in the city, the fine powdered 
dust will gain access to every room in the building and 
will lodge on food and pass into the throat and lungs by 
inhalations. 

When the awful truth dawns on the human mind that 
God is punishing the dwellers of the cities for their neglect 
of His own domains in the country, then the exodus will 
begin. It will bear on its banner the legend as old as the 
cities themselves: 


God made the country, 
Alan made the town. 
The devil made the city . 


155 


FORTY-NINTH LESSON 


“QUALITIES” 

S EOPLE ARE NOT ALIKE. It is said that no 
two are exactly similar. They differ in face, form 
and quality. In the lowest classes there are dis¬ 
tinguishing values, one from another. In the next grade 
of humanity, all are not alike. In the poor ranks, some 
are abjectly depressed and broken, some almost derelicts 
and others almost leaders; and this variation continues all 
the way up to the so-called top of society. Even in the 
elite, the elect, the choicest of all humanity’s offerings on 
the altar of rank, some men are of better quality than oth¬ 
ers, and some women 1 richer in personal traits than their 
associates. 

Coming down off the social roof we enter the temple of 
better humanity and find there the great open field of en¬ 
deavor in which all fortunes are made, all success achieved 
and all happiness secured. Even there the differences be¬ 
tween individuals are always marked and clear. But there 
are traits that are found among the most appreciated and 
at the same time the most victorious of humanity that are 
uniform in their value, fitting each wearer differently but 
with similar benefits. These traits we call qualities be¬ 
cause they are tests of inherent merit, and are open to rich 
and poor alike. In this study we include 

SEVEN QUALITIES. 

i. Calmness. 

2. Repression. 

3. Brightness. 

4. Attractivenes. 

5. Cleanliness. 

6. Activities. 

7. Spirit of Play. 




LIFE ELECTRICITY 


155 

A description of each of these seven qualities will be given 
in the lessons that follow, and suggestion how to adopt and 
make use of them will be added. 

Some of them directly tend to build Life Electricity, 
while others tend to retain it, and still others to employ it 
to advantage in the many ways of intercourse with men and 
women. You see yourself, and others see you. If you find 
traits in your make-up that you cannot approve of, the fact 
that no one else may behold them should not be taken as a 
reason for degenerating towards the stratum of a lower 
animal character. But as the human family was made for 
social purposes, it follows that you must be mirrored by 
the opinions of others. Great personages rarely defy such 
opinions, but win applause by the attainment of the com¬ 
manding qualities of life. 


FIFTIETH LESSON 


“CALMNESS” 


H MONG the strongest men and women of the world 
to-day, there are none that surpass in power or in¬ 
fluence the person who is calm in mind, nerves and 
muscles. The best machinery is that which has no vibra¬ 
tion or unsteadiness of motion; it runs with a gentleness 
that is not lessened by its increase of energy. The grand¬ 
est locomotive is that which starts easily and is all calm¬ 
ness even in its mad plunging over the rails. The stately 
boat, an ocean greyhound or water palace, that moves out 
of its dock with smoothness and swan-like grace, seems a 
floating object on the main, rather than a gigantic system 
of many-thousand horse power. Were these machines 
jerky, loose-jointed, awkward, erratic in motion and un¬ 
steady, they would not be types of vitality of the mechan¬ 
ical world. 





CALMNESS 


i57 


Some persons arise in the morning and from the minute 
of getting up until they fall into their beds again at night, 
they are in a hurry, rushed in mind and nerves, jerky and 
fidgety of body, miscalculating in all their undertakings, 
and always in their own way. One of the busiest farmers 
we have ever witnessed was full of energy and action; dodg¬ 
ing about here and there; shouting to his men, screaming 
to his cattle, hollering to his horses, telling others what to 
do and what not to do; and really accomplishing very little 
genuine work. His farm was behind all others and it cost 
him more to maintain it. 

On the other hand we have seen a quiet,* steady, calm- 
minded man conduct his farm with less labor, less rush, 
less noise, and yet with abundant results. 

Some women are in a stew all day long, are not well be¬ 
cause they are in a stew, and declare in confidence to their 
friends that they are in a stew because they are not well. 
Many women make themselves and everybody about them 
very nervous by their lack of ease and steadiness. An ex¬ 
cited mind is made so by itself, and when excited it cannot 
think with true intelligence nor can it impart information 
to others in the best manner. They are constantly misun¬ 
derstood. 

When there is a lack of calmness in the mind or nerves, 
the muscles are unable to do their work properly. Skill is 
wanting. The nerves are losing their vitality. The brain 
is not thinking deeply and with good judgment. Failure, 
loss, disappointment, restlessness and weakness are the train 
of results in this trend of error. People lose confidence in 
one who is thus faulty; and, on the other hand, there is no 
quality that commands so much respect as calmness. 

It can be cultivated. 

It grows rapidly by using. The agitated mind that is 
full of rush and excitement, can be called down into the 
steadier realm of ease and control. The first step is to re¬ 
solve that you will recognize the fault by studying your 


158 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


own condition. Look in the mirror. Does your face show 
calmness of mind ? Call in thoughts of peace and quietude. 
They are easily summoned if you are in earnest and pursue 
the matter all the time. 

Avoid superlatives. Do not think or speak in strong ad¬ 
jectives, or in the highest degree of comparison. Never 
talk in ejaculations or unfinished sentences, or parts of 
ideas. Before you open your mouth to say anything, know 
what you are to say and utter it deliberately. 

The best battles for self-mastery have been fought by in¬ 
viting the causes of excitement; not running away from 
them. “ Here comes Smith. I do not want to meet him, 
for he always makes me angry,” is the choice of a weak 
man. One who is strong would be glad to have Smith 
Come around so that the mind would have its test of 
strength by remaining calm all the wdiile Smith was trying 
to cause it to jump into some mood of excitement or agita¬ 
tion. 

In many cases it is wise not to seek trouble. But in 
training the mind to learn how to remain calm under diffi¬ 
culties, it must be brought face to face with conditions that 
annoy and stir it up. “ There is no merit in being cheer¬ 
ful when things go right,” and there is no strength in be¬ 
ing calm when all life about is peaceful. Strength must be 
acquired in the midst of agitation and annoyance. Seek 
these evil influences and study to calm your mind while they 
are doing their worst against you. 

Restlessness, discontent and vague longings disturb the 
mind when there are no outer influences to harass you. 
Make yourself calm against your own progeny. 

Also study and observe the nerves. You will find them 
on the jump for no cause whatever. They are simply go¬ 
ing it wild, or running away with the very energy that 
you need in the development of Life Electricity. They 
will come down to a state of calmness very quickly if you 
but speak to them. Why is it that one man will keep a 


REPRESSION 


159 


team of horses nervous and unsteady, and really weak; 
while another will control his team with a word, a tone, 
and even with the merest movement ? It is a beautiful sight 
to see a pair of fine-blooded animals driven by the steady 
hand of a man who is full of control over them by reason 
of his perfect calmness. They recognize him as their mas¬ 
ter. 

The body itself is likewise a machine that may do much 
more work and with greater skill if managed under the 
same principle. It can be calmed very easily. All that is 
required is attention to the matter, and a determination to 
make it calm. It will obey. There are some things that 
cannot be readily brought under the mastery of the will, 
but calmness is not one of them. Try it, and see how 
quickly you can acquire this noble quality. 


FIFTY-FIRST LESSON 


REPRESSION’’ 



)HIS QUALITY is best defined as that which avoids 
the limit of power. 

It is one of the important laws that are found in 
the higher studies of magnetism, although there it is put 
to different uses. The question may be asked why we in¬ 
clude in this course a law that properly belongs to mag¬ 
netism; and in reply we will state that repression is of 
great value in the development of Life Electricity, and in 
its simple forms in these lessons it does not in any way 
repeat the uses made of it as an aid to the cultivation of 
magnetism. The law is almost as broad as existence it¬ 
self and appears in every conceivable form, yet is hardly 
known to the general public. 

A few examples of repression will be given here, not for 
the purpose of being employed in the ways set forth in 





i6o 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


the illustrations, but merely to make the student familiar 
with its meaning. It can be best defined by examples rather 
than in words. 

1. The increase of the range of the singing voice has 
been the study of teachers for generations. One of the 
most successful of European masters had a secret by which 
he attained the greatest possible success with his pupils; and, 
after his death, it was found to be this same law of re¬ 
pression. “ Avoid the limit,” was his motto. In order to 
add new top notes, his plan was to instruct his pupils to 
sing only the high notes that were perfectly established in 
their voices, and not attempt those beyond. By follow¬ 
ing this plan and practicing constantly on the high notes 
that were easily executed, it was found after a time that 
new notes had been developed, and these became the per¬ 
fect high tones for further practice. Had they gone at 
once to the top or limit, the vocal cords would have been 
strained and great difficulty experienced in extending the 
range. The same law applies to the lower end of the vocal 
register. It has worked wonders when properly applied. 

2. Weak voices may be made very strong by the same 

principle. If the limit of force is used, the cords are hurt 
and the beauty of voice is ruined. But let the tones be 
employed with force and the limit be avoided, and the re¬ 
sult will be that nature will add strength to the voice little 
by little. Any skilful teacher will use as the motto: “ Ap¬ 

proach the limit of force but do not reach it.” 

3. Interest in any affair commands more respect, as it 
has more influence over the minds of other people, when 
it is strong but not to the full limit. If you praise a per¬ 
son or object or work, and make your praise weak, you 
hurt it; if you make it strong, you help it; if you make it as 
strong as possible, there is at once a reaction that spoils the 
whole effort. 

4. Intensity of thought or feeling drops to weakness just 
as soon as it becomes excessive. 


REPRESSION 


161 


5. Magnetism is a vast power. One of the best types 
of personal magnetism in modern times within the memory 
of those now living, was that of Tomaso Salvini, the great 
Italian actor. He brought to this country the law of re¬ 
pression. Everybody who witnessed his work was made to 
realize that he had in reserve a margin of magnetism that 
he did not permit to pass into his voice and action. Sara 
Bernhardt learned this secret and used it for many years. 
In a character that she played often and that was also 
enacted by Miss Mather, the former used repression, never 
reaching the limit of her magnetism, while Miss Mather 
went always in her passions to the very last vestige of limit, 
and wore herself out without producing magnetic effects. 
Bernhardt found that repression increased her magnetism, 
and so she grew greater year by year. 

6. A man who is angry is not really angry if he leaves a 
margin of energy this side of the full limit of his anger. 
When he goes to the extreme, every fibre of his mind and 
nervous system seems to be torn up by the roots, with the 
result that he is left weak and broken in power. But if 
he can think in the flash of a second of the advantage that 
will accrue to him by avoiding the limit, he can still appear 
angry, and yet laugh in his sleeve at the terror he inspires 
in others. In fact his power will increase by this method, 
and it is a fine study for the actor who wishes to depict 
the real mood, no matter what it is, and yet not be its slave. 
Grand actors always are real, but they have an appreciable 
margin between their realism and its full natural limit, and 
so they become great. The law at work is a great one 
and is worthy of the most assiduous study by every person 
who seeks the heights in this world of personal achievement. 
It is very easily tested by any one, as it requires nothing 
more than attention to the passing moods of the day. Catch 
yourself when you are going off to some extreme of feeling 
and draw a tight rein. 

This is the noblest of all rules of human conduct. 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


162 

In the study of Life Electricity you can apply this law 
frequently in mind, nerves and muscles. The mind has a 
tendency to fly to some excess of belief, thought, expression, 
qualification, or suspicion; and you should rein it in before 
you reach the full limit of such action. 

The nerves and the feelings run away with you at times. 
They are helpful to your vitality by their very life; but the 
extremes must be avoided. 

The muscles are often taxed to do as much as they can. 
This exhausts the storage batteries of the body and often 
breaks down the muscles themselves. Never allow such ex¬ 
cess. 

Carry your daily life under the rule of repression and 
you will soon realize the growth of a new power of which 
you will be exceedingly proud. 


FIFTY-SECOND LESSON 


‘BRIGHTNESS” 


cj^^UNLIGHT is regarded as beneficial to the mind, 
nerves, blood and general body. It holds so great an 
influence over the brain that the latter is unable to 
do its best work where the sunlight has been kept from 
it for some time. Dark rooms depress the nerves and make 
the blood poor. All these agencies are needed in the ac¬ 
quisition of Life Electricity; for bad health, or weak nerves, 
or a dull mind are enemies to this power. 

But what is true in the use of actual sunlight is also 
true in the habits of mind and heart. Some persons are 
cheerful in prison, although this is difficult in most cases. 
Some make up their minds to take all conditions and hap¬ 
penings as foi the best, on the principle stated by the poet 
Pope, “ Whatever is, is right.” 





BRIGHTNESS 


163 

Every transaction of each day of life has two sides to it. 
No person is so dull that he cannot find a dark prospect to 
the happiest situation, and a bright one to a dark or gloomy 
circumstance if he tries. When habits of ill nature begin to 
make a person disliked, sometimes there comes the intelli¬ 
gence that reveals this fact, and a new start is made. “ If 
I find myself in an unpleasant mood, I correct it as soon 
as possible, for such a mood will not draw friends,” is the 
statement of a man who has succeeded in driving all the 
darkness out of his nature. 

You need friends. 

If the world is against you, the struggle of existence is 
made harder, and more vitality and energy are uselessly 
wasted in such efforts. Like the associate life in nature, 
so associate helpfulness and confidence add to a person’s 
power. Brightness wins friends of the right kind. A 
gloomy and repellant person may have friends, but they are 
not of the desirable sort; they seek some advantages, and 
desert him when these can no longer be supplied. 

Brightness is more or less infectious if it is habitual. If 
forced for a special occasion, it is too thinly clad to deceive 
the feelings, even if the mind regards it as genuine. There 
are many varieties of depressed and unattractive moods; 
but they all grow on a person by permission, and soon come 
to take full possession of him. It is easier to be ugly than 
gentle; cross than kind; sarcastic than sympathetic; ill na- 
tured than pleasant; despondent than hopeful; arrogant 
than social; mean than generous; and, as humanity more 
often floats down stream than rows up, nothing is more 
natural than the neglect to cultivate the better qualities of 
life. 

A little thinking each day will remedy the evil. 

Brightness improves the health of the mind, nerves, blood 
and body; and it is therefore related in some way to the 
sunlight that comes out of the sky on charming days to 
gladden the people and places on which it shines. 


164 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


You Catch back from others the kind of influence you 
throw out from yourself. It is the law of reflection. Thus 
you gain by the radiance of your own brightness, and you 
are better for it. 

There is not an organic function in the whole body that 
is not injured by the dark moods that some people allow 
to grow on them until they know nothing of the sweeter 
side of life. It was not long ago that we found an aged 
woman bemoaning her loneliness. She was always in tears. 
This habit had come over her in a few months until it 
made her almost ill and threatened her life. By some 
good fortune she was made to see the folly of such a course, 
and she spent her time cultivating brightness until all the 
conditions were reversed. She is but one of many be¬ 
lievers in this quality who have gained health and happiness 
as well as strength and power by its aid. 


FIFTY-THIRD LESSON 


“ATTRACTIVENESS” 

B ^VERY TRAIT of character is either a friend or an 
j) enemy to its possessor. There are no neutral traits. 
*> Electricity is either positive or negative. You draw 
the influence and respect of others, or you repel them. If 
you go through life as a dead centre you are almost un¬ 
known while you live. Harmless people are seldom thought 
of. The member of a church who does no wrong and does 
no good is no good because he does no good, no matter how 
little wrong he commits; for if he were in his grave he 
could do no wrong. 

Life Electricity is intended to aid a person, first to 
make himself a power in his own existence for himself, and 
a source of attraction to others; to draw people to him 
who will value him while he lives rather than place a mon- 






ATTRACTIVENESS 


165 

ument over his virtues when he dies. Value builds on it¬ 
self. Money makes money. To find yourself upheld and 
highly esteemed by your fellowmen gives you by the law of 
reflection a tremendous self-gain in your own prestige and 
intrinsic merit. 

These are influences that add to your genuine ability. 

You cannot be worthy of a following unless you are 
capable of leadership; for to be something above the drift¬ 
wood of life even in a small community is btter than being 
the driftwood itself; and you are always called to choose 
between the two. 

A person is attractive who studies himself and takes an 
account of stock of his repellant attributes, and then makes 
up his mind good and strong to substitute exact opposites 
for them. This has been the rule with thousands who have 
succeeded in gaining a better foothold on the supporting and 
respecting estimation of the public. If you lack the sup¬ 
port of public opinion where you are well known, or if 
there is an absence of general respect for you, something is 
weak in your own make-up. You repel. 

There is a difference between the powers of attraction 
that come from some advantage in the world, and the inher¬ 
ent quality that draws others in adversity as well as in suc¬ 
cess. If you have rank, or office, or money, there will be 
people who will seek to gain your good will in order to 
selfishly benefit themselves. But if you have attractiveness 
of mind, of habits, and of personality, you will have staunch 
friends who will not exert a selfish influence over you. 

They will look up to you. 

Refinement is attractive, if it is not carried to an esthetic 
extreme, in which case it will react and repel. Neatness 
of dress and body are attractive. Some husbands and wives 
lose all respect for each other, and of course all love, by 
the faults of coarseness and nastiness. Good mental am¬ 
bition is still more attractive; while the taste for cheap ideas 
and cheap literature is repellant. Idleness and silly fads 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


166 

repel; but usefulness in what the mind and body achieve 
is sooner or later appreciated. 

Flippant speech, artificial manners, lounging habits, slow 
and dull conversation, slang, gum-chewing, tobacco-chew¬ 
ing, slack dress and toilet, low tastes, these and many other 
traits are repellant. 

But there is an attractive style and manner of conduct 
that add to the character of every man and woman; regard¬ 
less of the moral or ethical standard. Such a style and 
manner may be Cultivated by thinking of their value and 
the many ways in which they may be introduced into one’s 
life. 

People of good judgment, finding their ordinary means 
of holding the favorable estimate of others vanishing, take 
a new hold on existence by studying up the better traits 
and then adopt them with immense gain to themselves. 


FIFTY-FOURTH LESSON 


“CLEANLINESS” 

S ONG AGO, ere man studied himself as an object 
of improvement, he was made to understand that 
cleanliness had a moral value. Whether this is true 
or not, does not matter, as it has a greater mission than 
to impart ethical aid to his being. In this era it is well 
known that dirt and disease are boon companions. Once 
when the plague had swept countless thousands away, some¬ 
one discovered the fact that man was a very dirty animal. 
H is skin was a mass of filth and he vied with porkers in 
his habits and tastes. 

A small proportion of men and women decided cen¬ 
turies ago that safety for the race lay in a decrease of 
the dirt in which they reveled. A bath for the whole body, 
while an innovation in cold climates, was recommended and 







cleanliness 


167 


to some extent adopted. Some cleaned themselves once a 
month, others once a week, until at last the good old cus¬ 
tom of taking the Saturday evening bath was firmly es¬ 
tablished. This habit is now born in the blood. So strong 
is it that a good woman who was invited to visit her son in a 
great city, was given a bedroom with a bath attached. 
She admired the tiling and the decorated tub, and ex¬ 
claimed : “ What a lovely place for taking a bath, and to 

think that this is only Tuesday and bath-night will not be 
here till Saturaday.” 

In the physical sense cleanliness is a stimulus to the blood 
and to the nerves. When you are tired, get in the tub and 
note how refreshed you will be when the excretions have 
gone out at the skin and the poisons that caused weariness 
have disappeared. The water should at all times be blood 
warm or warmer; never colder. Cold water bathing takes 
the vitality out of the ganglionic cells, and leaves the body 
without Life Electricity. It makes any man or woman 
very nervous and it requires days and sometimes weeks to 
become normal again. Advocates of cold plunges and cold 
sponging are erratic and eccentric in their nerves. This 
question has been discussed for half a century and the facts 
have been accumulated on both sides of the matter, with a 
vast preponderance of evidence showing the injury to the 
nervous system from using water colder than the blood. 
Only recently a great baseball club was found to be losing 
too many games for its calibre, and it was found that the 
fault was due to the free use of cold water bathing. A 
dash of cold water is very good as a stimulant, but the error 
lies in cooling the surface of the body by this agency. The 
dash and quick wiping serves to bring the hot blood to the 
surface and thus aids the circulation without depleting the 
nervous energy. 

Cleanliness stimulates the mind. 

If you go into a dining-room and find the floor clean, the 
table cloth clean, the dishes clean, and the food clean, you 


168 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


will have much more inclination to eat than if you find 
everything dirty. Hungry people sometimes find their ap¬ 
petites suddenly withdrawn when they see food of a prior 
meal or meals sticking to knives, forks, spoons and edges 
of plates. A nasty table doth is also depressing. The 
hands of the servants should be clean. Long finger nails 
under which soil is packed are not stimulating agencies to 
appetite when thrust under the faces of those seated at the 
table. 

Dirt everywhere is depressing. 

There are scores of little and big ways in which cleanli¬ 
ness can be brought home to the mind and body, and it 
always pays. The wife who advocates and practices this 
divine doctrine wins the love of her husband in a practical 
way; and the husband who is neat and cleanly at all times 
is respected by his wife. 

Thus cleanliness pays a large dividend many times over. 


FIFTY-FIFTH LESSON 


“ACTIVITIES” 


» IFE IS ACTION. When absolute rest is reached 
nothing remains. 

People who work are often heard to remark that 
they will take a vacation for the balance of their lives 
when they accumulate money enough to enable them to re¬ 
tire. The most unhappy men and women on earth in the 
lands of civilization are those who are not obliged to 
work for a living. To rest is to rust; and all the powers 
tend to decay at the same time. 

Extremes are hurtful in this line of training. 

Extreme hard work is not to be desired, for it breaks 
down cell-structures too fast for their vitality. But the 
lack of labor is still more injurious. There is a principle 
behind every rule of life, and we find one that applies here, 






ACTIVITIES 


169 

which says that life is born of light, and light is born of the 
sun, and the sun is light because it is active. There is no 
such thing as life except as a part of activity. 

Strength is the result of activity. 

If you wish your right arm to be strong and your left 
arm weak, you should exercise the former until it can take 
on day by day greater tasks without reaching the extreme 
of effort; all the while giving the left arm nothing to do. 
If you wish to make your legs stronger than they now are, 
stand on one for a minute at a time, then on the other, and 
finally carry in the arms or on the shoulders a heavy load 
while standing on only one leg at a time. By this means 
you will acquire so great strength of legs that weariness 
will not be known. But if you wish to have weak legs, 
and not be able to stand much at a time, or to be too tired 
to take long walks, give the legs a good rest every day by 
sitting in chairs or taking things easy. 

Muscular strength in mild deree helps very much to build 
up nervous strength and from the latter we secure Life 
Electricity. Of course this is only one of the many means 
of aid. A general all-round regime, fashioned on the best 
conduct, is sure to do more for a person than any specific 
fad. 

People are too prone to let life drift. One who does not 
care to exert himself says, “ We go through the world but 
once, and what is the use of getting tired? ” Another says, 
“ This is our last trip through the world, and I want to 
have all the good times I can.” But such reasoners forget 
that the person who is most tired is the one who is the 
most inactive; yet for such a rusted individual to attempt 
to exercise without gradually getting used to it, would mean 
pain and suffering in the depreciated muscles. To have the 
best of good times one must have an awakened conscience. 
The latter is most at peace with its owner when it can see 
at the close of each day a line of duties or activities well 
performed. 


17o 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


Useless lives are of no value to anybody. 

Something that is real ought to be accomplished every 
day. The man who earns his bread and the support of his 
family, has done something; but it is a question whether 
the holding together of body and soul is all there is in living. 
It seems that there should be something else to do beyond 
keeping alive and comfortable. To aid others is about the 
same thing as to aid yourself, if nothing more is secured than 
a living. The natives of the tropics do as much as that and 
avoid work. 

Anything that is useful indoors or out of doors should 
arouse the attention and give duties for the mind and mus¬ 
cles to perform; and there will, ere long, be an accumulation 
of a new kind of wealth in your life. 


FIFTY-SIXTH LESSON 


SPIRIT OF PLAY 



ATURE TEACHES PLAY to all her young, and 
r pm for a purpose. 

There is no animal so savage that it will not play 
with all the cunning movements of a domestic kitten, and 
it would seem as if gentleness were born in the wildest of 
them. But their true natures assert themselves as they 
pass out of the frolicking period into that of mature growth. 

Play produces flexibility of muscle and accuracy of action. 
If it were omitted in the young beast, he could not hunt his 
prey in after life. It is identified with the time of youth and 
is supposed to cease altogether when the body has attained 
its growth and filled out in its thickness. But men in mid¬ 
dle life and in old age, and some women also, have been 
inclined to indulge in play of the same nature as in youth. 
Wherever they have done so, and have used the varieties of 
action that are not violent, but that employ every muscle 





SPIRIT OF PLAY 


171 


of the body, the result has been to bring back some of the 
spirit of younger days. 

Play that requires a seated position, at a table or in 
any resting attitude, does not invite the feelings of youth; 
but, on the contrary, makes the mind old and the body 
stiff, as respiration is lowered very much and the lungs 
and heart are injured by the combination of a superficially 
active brain and a dead attitude of the body. 

Interest in games of chance closes the normal thinking 
facilities, and leads to a morbid habit of mind, as well as to 
a sluggish nervous taint that becomes sooner or later the 
basis of suicidal tendencies. The only true play is that 
which depends on skill of the muscles and careful exercise 
of the judgment. There are many such games now in use 
that are gentle enough for old people and not too tame 
for the middle-aged; while youth has a dozen or more 
of approved sports that are highly beneficial. The limit 
of power should be avoided, and for this reason it is not ad¬ 
visable to indulge in tests of extreme speed or strength, as 
the penalties stalk close behind. 

Mature people of great wealth are now following the 
advice of their physicians to take up the spirit of play. The 
purpose is to induce them to get all the outdoor air pos¬ 
sible, and to be active in the realms of nature. Indigestion 
and most chronic maladies are driven from the body by such 
combination. 

But the real value of play is the storing in the electric 
batteries of the nervous system of a large fund of youthful 
vigor with its better vitality than comes through any other 
agency. Youthful vitality is of a more enduring and elas¬ 
tic character than that which is invited wholly by mechan¬ 
ical codes of regime and diet. In youth nature overlooks 
most dangers to the body, that weigh it down in after life. 

For these reasons it is very important to get back the 
spirit of youth by indulging in the spirit of play. Play 
some every day. Avoid extremes. Study repression of the 


172 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


muscles and strength. Play in the open air. Let alone 
all games of chance and all games that require sitting. 
Never mind defeat. Do the best you can. Do better every 
time and try. You may regard yourself as a winner if you 
do something with your muscles that is skilful and that 
shows elasticity, flexibility and accuracy of motion, guided 
by some definite plan in the mind. 

Do not be led into the hard games that may hurt you. 
Do not overtax your heart or your strength. Play like a 
young person, and play in good humor all the time. 


FIFTY-SEVENTH LESSON 


DISTILLATION’’ 



>E NOW COME to the fifth friend of Life Elec¬ 
tricity which is distillation. By reference to the 
t> thirty-sixth lesson it will be seen that there are 
seven of these friends, of which four have already been dis¬ 
cussed in the preceding lessons. Distillation is the act of 
purifying anything foul and it makes use of natural laws 
only. In the effort to produce soil in the long past, count¬ 
less millions of animal bodies and vegetable specimens have 
in each decade been sacrificed until the once solid rock that 
covered the entire area of earth has been spread with a 
loam of humus nature, in which plants would grow and 
out of which human life became possible. 

But the filth and dirt that were a part of this wonderful 
scheme have always been a menace to existence. To avert 
the constant dangers, a great law was made and it is known 
as distillation. 

The ocean is salt because it has served as the dumping 
pool of much of the dirt and filth of past operations. Its 
water is unfit to drink; yet when distilled it is better than 
any other water. Nature has made use of the law of grav¬ 
ity, has made vapor lighter than air, has caused the vapor 





DISTILLATION 


173 ^ 

to rise in masses to the height of clouds, and there has sent 
against it two currents of the atmosphere; the warmed cur¬ 
rent holds it in place and the colder current condenses it 
and makes it again heavier than air, which brings it down 
by the same law of gravity to the earth where it appears 
in the form of rain. 

Here is a wonderful process, all the result of special 
design toward the race. 

Only that which is pure will pass out by the law of 
distillation. The filth remains. The salt taste of the ocean 
is all the time becoming salter, because more and more of 
the good is going out of it and all the bad remains. The 
washings of the earth are forever pouring into its vast 
vaults. 

Special design has made rain for mankind to use as drink¬ 
ing water. In the absence of this fluid, recourse must be 
had to the wells which are composed of water that has 
sunk into the earth and been filtered by its dirt and sand; 
always a matter of uncertainty. Such water contains min¬ 
eral substance, often in great abundance, and this is one of 
the enemies to the human body, as may be seen by reviewing 
lesson twenty in this course. Well waters everywhere are 
more or less contaminated. Lakes and ponds as well as 
rivers and other surface collections of water, are charged with 
the drainage from the land and this includes a great amount 
of filth. 

As disease and enemies of the body reduce the vitality, 
it is important that the drinking water should be pure. 
Nature’s gift, rain, is generally repudiated at the present 
day for several reasons, all of which may be overcome if 
an earnest effort is made to succeed. 

Rain water is a delicate distillation which has an affinity 
for everything about it; and it therefore draws into itself 
the odors and flavors of many things that are not pleasant. 
Like new milk it becomes attached to smells and tastes, and 
soon loses its genuine character. This has always been a 


174 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


serious objection to the use of rain water for drinking pur¬ 
poses. The remedy is to handle it in clean receptacles and 
as soon as it is taken. If it slides over a dirty roof, it 
will have the odor of the roof with it. Pure rain caught 
out of a clear atmosphere is as white as the snow which 
it forms, and is as free from objectionable taste and smell. 

Another objection to rain is the fact that it gathers bad 
smells and flavors from any place where it is kept. Abso¬ 
lute cleanliness is the only remedy, and this has hardly ever 
been employed in the attempts to secure and hold a supply 
of this distillation. It spoils in a short time like milk if not 
kept iced or under ground in clean reservoirs. 

But despite the disadvantages to the palate, rain water is 
the best offering ever sent to earth by nature. It acts as 
a solvent for the uric acid in the body, and for the old 
age salts and mineral matter that makes one grow older than 
the years should warrant. Its habit of picking up bad matter 
makes it valuable in the blood as a cleanser. To drink 
rain water several times a day, and to bathe the face in it 
as often, will make purer blood and a better complexion 
than any other agency. It serves to increase the flow of 
gastric juices to the stomach, when well water and surface 
water tend to the other habit. 

As a substitute for rain water, governments distil the 
ocean water on board ship, and thus provide something 
nearly as valuable. In every large city in the civilized 
world there are stills that convert ordinary water into dis¬ 
tillation, and this is sold extensively. One fact is however 
overlooked in so doing. Absolutely pure water is a poison 
because it lacks something that the air contains. Rain 
water is thrown out of the rolling clouds that are pillowed 
on the air under the rays of the sun. The vitality that 
the sun and outdoor air contain is thus imparted to the rain 
and it is vitalized. Artificial distillation is deficient in 
this glame and should not be used until such vitality has 
been added to it. 


FRUIT DISTILLATION 


i 75 


These principles are stated in this lesson as they exist in 
nature. What is needed is that man should employ them 
as an act and proof of civilization; and this he will do when 
he places as great a value on health as on machinery. 


FIFTY-EIGHTH LESSON 


“FRUIT DISTILLATION” 

is the distilled juice of the ground. The roots 
distill it before they send it on upward into the 
main branch, and this in turn distills it before it 
goes into the branches, and it is put through the purifying 
process more and more all the way to the fruit. Sap. is 
not pure water, but the water part of it is pure. Other 
things are added to make the taste and the quality. 

All the juicy fruits are forms of natural distillation com¬ 
bined with some food value. All the non-juicy fruits are 
forms of food, if suitable for such purposes; while there are 
some fruits that combine both food and drink. There is no 
doubt that the grape in its portion between the seeds and 
the skin is a fine distil and also a good food, being capable 
of supporting life a long time. Bananas are more food 
than drink, yet contain more than two-thirds water in their 
bulk. 

The best of the distilled fruits are the apple and the 
grape; but some persons have such a weak condition of the 
alimentary canal that they cannot eat any fruit. This 
trouble should first be corrected by the use of normal foods 
as will be shown later in this course. An excess of acidity, 
whether in the blood or juices, of the body will repel any 
further additions, and an excess of acidity in fruits or 
foods is also equally bad. The rule is to lean rather toward 
the milder form than the sour of fruit or food. Mild apples 
are best, and sweet apples are still better. The pulp of 
grapes is too acid for many persons, but the “ royal juice ” 





176 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


which is located between the pulp and the skin is the most 
useful of all. 

Apples which are the king of distilled fruits are mis¬ 
judged, and for the following reasons: 

1. People do not know that the fruit-cells burst open 
naturally either by ripening or by mellowing. These cells 
are so small that they can be seen only by a microscope. 
When hard apples are cooked to a soft mass, the same fruit- 
cells are still closed, although separated into a mushy state 
which makes them seem to be mellow. When they ripen or 
mellow, they cause the inner juices to come forth as the 
cells burst. These juices are the distilled part, and are 
never present when hard apples are cooked soft, or are 
eaten hard; thus all the good being lost by the error. 

The fruit cells cannot be burst open by cooking. 

2. On the principle just stated cooked fruits are almost 
all useless, as none of them have reached that stage where 
the cells have burst open and released the distilled juices. 
Plums which are delicious when this mellowing or ripening 
has occurred, are quite acid otherwise; and a difference in 
time of only an hour or two may determine the value of the 
plum. A cooked plum is far from having burst open its 
fruit-cells, and is not valuable. The practice of cooking 
under-ripe fruit is contrary to nature. Cooking will soften 
the fruit structure but will not cause the cells to burst open 
and release their distilled juices. 

3. Pulp should not be eaten, nor skin. It is wholly in¬ 
digestible and has caused many cases of bowel trouble. 
We know of many persons who have always suffered in this 
way from eating apples and other fruit; but when they took 
only the juice of a perfectly mellowed apple that other¬ 
wise would have caused distress, they found it like a med¬ 
icine, full of stimulating fluid that healed rather than hurt 
the body. 

The fruits that yield the distilled juices are as follows: 

1. Apples. These are of many flavors and degrees of 


FRUIT DISTILLATION 


177 


acidity, suited by nature to the tastes and desires of hu¬ 
manity. 

2. Grapes. These should be fully ripe and the liquid 
between the skin and pulp should be preferred. 

3. Pears. The acrid and kidney-rushing pears should be 
avoided if those organs seem to be over-stimulated by eating 
this fruit. 

4. Blackberries. These are the most vitalizing of all 
the fruits when they are fully ripe and very mellow. Many 
of the strongest animals live on them for weeks at a time. 
In the early decades of the colonies in America this fruit be¬ 
came a staple food and its medicinal qualities saved many 
lives by clearing out the system and renewing the vitality 
of the digestive tract. 

5. Plums. These must be dead ripe and fully mellow. 

6. Cherries. When ripe and very soft from mellowing, 
the milder kinds are a most grateful and beneficial form 
of distillation. When cooked they do not give up their dis-. 
tilled juices and are not valuable. 

7. Oranges. These must be fully ripe and both skin and 
pulp must be avoided. 

8. Other fruits may be used, but they should be adjusted 
to the health of a person. Raspberries hurt some. Straw T - 
berries set up skin eruptions and also cause uric acid, rheu¬ 
matism and neuralgia in many persons, yet in others their 
influence is wholly for good and they cleanse the blood and 
stimulate appetite. It is necessary to watch for results 
when any of these fruits are used. Blueberries, huckle¬ 
berries, gooseberries and other similar fruit are good or bad 
as they are suited to each individual. The sweet goose¬ 
berry is the only form of this fruit that should ever be 
eaten. Any gooseberry, sweet or sour, when cooked will 
set up conditions that tend to rheumatism, as is proved in 
lands where it is most eaten. 

A banana is a food fruit, and should always be dead ripe. 
When the least bit under-ripe it may cause bowel trouble 
and serious sickness. 


178 


FIFTY-NINTH LESSON 


“ANIMAL DISTILLATION” 

B OWEVER IMPORTANT the subject of fruit dis¬ 
tillation may be, that of animal distillation is of still 
greater value. But the term is now used to indicate 
a purifying process without pursuing the exact method in¬ 
volved in the action of nature in the production of rain 
water. It more closely resembles the change whereby the 
juices of fruits are lifted from the impure soil and brought 
to a state of perfection in the product of the tree or bush or 
vine. 

Animal distillation includes three things: 

i. Fat. 

2. The egg. 

3. Milk. 

Of the three above named, fat is the least valuable under 
some circumstances, and yet the most valuable under others. 
It is largely the good part of the breakdown in the body 
of the animal, and is distilled and laid aside for future use; 
or, in excess, as an incumbrance to the health. In the 
human body, a little fat is helpful; but, like too much sun¬ 
light, it is hurtful when excessive. 

The old age salts and mineral matter that are present in 
meat juices and animal fibre are less abundant in fat; do 
not appear at all in the egg and rarely in milk; unless the 
feeding of the poultry and stock is deplorably bad. 

The special value of fat is its carbon. In the extreme 
north the natives adopt blubber and other forms of oil and 
fat as their diet, in order to avoid death by freezing. In 
the hot countries, it would be supposed that fat, especially 
in summer time, would be injurious on account of its supply 
of heat to the blood; and the same might be said of sugar, 
which, like fat, is almost pure carbon. Olive oil, cocoa, 
chocolate and other forms of rich carbon, are also classed as 




ANIMAL DISTILLATION 


179 


heaters of the body. In the least excess they break up the 
blood, make the tropical heat unendurable and life a mis¬ 
ery. But the native is instinctively led to avoid excess. 

As all human beings must be fed with carbon to produce 
energy, and as no other element can do this, there must be 
a resort to fats, or oils, or butter, sugar and other like foods. 
Carbon gives more value to life than any other thing in nu¬ 
trition; it breaks down more readily and in greater activity; 
and it leaves the most deadly of poisons in the body. It 
must be fed, or we die; and its debris must be got rid of, 
or we sicken and fail. 

There is a rule of nature that is always safe to follow; 
and it says that foods and fruits that grow in the climate 
where eaten are far more beneficial for the health and vi¬ 
tality of man that if they are raised in a climate different 
from that where they are eaten. They are not to be dis¬ 
carded because of the latter fact; but they do not furnish 
the best conditions although they have great food value. 
If you are in the South, you will do well to give preference 
to the products of the fruit and vegetable world in that 
clime. If you live in the North, you will find that nature 
has been about right in the main products of her soil there. 
This rule refers mainly to the leading foods, and does not 
forbid the use of the good things from other climes. 

The South and the tropics have been rich in carbon; hav¬ 
ing such foods as cocoa, chocolate, sugar, figs, dates, olives 
and others in the list most suited to the human race. The 
natives of the hot countries use olive oil freely, and get their 
best vitality from it. The fiery and intense natures of Ital¬ 
ians, Spaniards, and others who are the best types of the 
hot lands, are much more vital and energetic than those 
found farther north. Compare the slower peoples in mid¬ 
dle and upper Europe with those that skirt the Mediter¬ 
ranean, and you will find this fiery vitality constantly in¬ 
creasing as you go southward. Of course extremes are not 
to be favored, and the far north as well as the far south 


i8o 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


pass into the undesirable types of activity or sluggishness 
necessitated by the severe climates. 

Heat when too prolonged or too great tends to break 
down the vitality. A nitrogenous diet has the same effect. 
Therefore to combine the non-carbon foods with summer 
weather in the North, or with the heat of the South, may 
lead to weakness of the digestive organs and to loss of vital¬ 
ity. Such a combination often results in bowel trouble, 
which can be cured most readily by a return to the carbon 
diet. 

Yet extremes are to be avoided. 

Too much carbon breaks up the blood and causes sores 
and skin eruption. Too little lowers the vitality. Be¬ 
tween these extremes will be found the right course. For 
the purposes of this study and training, carbon is an im¬ 
portant and necessary food, but it should be taken in the 
least possible quantities daily. Its chief advantage is in 
maintaining the energy of the nervous system and supporting 
its vitality. 

Nature knew this when the carbons were made to grow 
in the hot climes. In the Southern States the people shock 
us by the free use of ham, bacon and meat fats; apparently 
to excess; and often so; but they crave that very fat, and 
thrive best on it. Take it from them and they will suffer. 
But they use it in very small quantities, or at least those 
of them that keep well. Excess of animal fats will always 
bring its penalty. 

The chief danger that comes from the eating of fat meat 
is the crisp surface which is not digestible but that gives 
it the tempting flavor. This comes from cooking. The 
practice of chewing this crisp part, and not swallowing it 
saves the indigestion that might follow. Fried bacon, for 
instance, tempts the appetite and arouses the flow of gas¬ 
tric juices; and the same is true of the surface of meats that 
have been given a crispness by being cooked. Humanity 
was once compelled to seek its food from all sources, and 


ANIMAL DISTILLATION 


181 

it has inherited a liking for the flavor of meats and crisp 
fat surfaces; and this liking is useful, when encouraged, in 
setting in motion a good appetite. The fault is in allowing 
the indigestible parts to be swallowed. They do only harm. 
They can do no good in the stomach. Why not get the 
benefit from them by chewing and swallowing the digesti¬ 
ble fat and not the injurious part? 

Weak persons are often benefited by animal fats. In 
anaemia and lung troubles the prescribed medicine is Cod 
liver oil or its equivalent; but fried bacon eaten and partly 
eliminated as just described, will serve the same purpose 
and is far more agreeable. Those who cannot be taught to 
chew and remove the parts that will not dissolve in the 
mouth after a minute of mastication, should be put upon 
cod liver oil. 

Olives and olive oil are better adapted to the stomach if 
they can be had pure; but the olive oil now on sale in this 
country is not pure. 

As age comes on the stomach refuses to take kindly to 
fats of meat; but can always digest pure olive oil, pure 
butter, pure cream, sugar and other carbons. Distress 
often follows the attempt to include animal fats in the diet; 
and care should be taken to watch the results in aged people. 

As has been stated, of the three forms of animal distilla¬ 
tion, fats are the least valuable, although they have at times 
an importance that should not be denied or underestimated 
if a good state of health is to be secured. What may not 
be good for one person may be the best food for another. 


SIXTIETH LESSON 


182 


“THE EGG” 


0 UT OF THE EGG all forms of life are developed, 
whether in the animal or the vegetable kingdom; 
for the one first cell is the basis of everything. In 
this course of study the kind of egg referred to is that which 
special design has brought closest to the needs and apprecia¬ 
tion of man, the product of common poultry. If cleanly 
fed this is next to the most perfect food of the human race 
and was so ordained by the plans of nature. 

Bad feeding may not result in impure eggs; just as dirty 
water does not yield dirty distillation; for the object of 
the latter process is to claim the better part of that which 
is unfit for use. The forty-seventh lesson should be well 
studied in this connection. It is the plan of nature to se¬ 
cure the best part of all the nutrition that is gathered by 
the hen and store it away in the egg. By analysis this part 
is shown to be practically free from the animal poisons that 
make meat dangerous, and it is also nearly free from the 
old age salts and deposits that bring on maturity and de¬ 
crepitude of the body, all of which are found in fresh 
juices and meats. 

The danger that arises from eating animal food is found 
almost wholly in these classes of impurities: 

1. Animal salts and mineral matter. 

2. Old age deposits. 

3. Poisons set free during the breakdown of cell-life in 
the blood and tissue. 

Eggs do not contain any of these dangers, because the 
egg is not a part of the general system of the organism. It 
is collected from the circulation of the blood in the fowl, 
but is not a part of the circulatory system. It does no 
work either functional or under the will power of the 




THE EGG 


183 

organism in which it is formed. Instead of changing by 
metabolism, or breakdown, it is being built up until, encased 
in its shell, it is ready for introduction into the world. Be¬ 
fore metabolism will begin in the egg it must be subjected 
to the proper degree of animal heat or its equivalent and its 
cell structure must be incited to a new growth. 

This process does not take place in the infertile egg. 

The latter is therefore one of the ideal forms of food for 
humanity. 

The best diet that you can take is that which produces 
something that is nearly as valuable in nutrition as the egg. 
But you do not succeed in this effort as a rule, for you are 
not an egg-forming organism and must therefore look to 
other kinds of life for the goal of nutritive value. 

Experiments with eggs as the ideal food for man 
have been made for centuries. It has been learned that 
two uses are the most effective in sustaining a high vitality, 
and they may be stated as follows: 

1. The cooked yolk. 

2. The raw white. 

For some reason or other the white of an egg when sub¬ 
jected to a low degree of heat will coagulate and in that 
condition is indigestible. But the yolk, which is of a differ¬ 
ent character, is more readily digested after being Cooked 
until it is hard. It makes no difference how long it is 
cooked, if it can be reduced to a fine powder when done. 
This is known as yolk-flour. It can be sprinkled on bread 
or taken in connection with other food, always to advantage. 
A little salt adds to its ease of digestion. The cooked yolk 
is sometimes sliced. 

The chief value of the whites of eggs is the readiness with 
which they repair the lesion to the membranes. In this con¬ 
nection the facts set forth in the thirty-first lesson will be 
very helpful, as the healing of the membranes is the first 
true step toward recovery from disease. They should never 
be taken unless raw and ice cold. 


184 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


They also furnish albumin direct to the blood, and this 
is the most effective form of nutrition. But heat destroys 
all its value. 

On the other hand the yolks, when cooked, furnish gen¬ 
eral food for the body and all its parts. Some centuries 
ago it was discovered that the use of cooked yolks would 
supply a staying, strength-giving nutrition for humanity 
that would support life indefinitely. Men who had been 
wrecked in health in middle life adopted the use of the 
cooked yolks, omitting the whites of eggs altogether, and 
they found their vitality growing better all the time. The 
reason why they discarded the whites was because of the in¬ 
digestibility of the cooked albumin. It retarded their prog¬ 
ress toward good health, while the cooked yolks helped 
it; and to secure certain results of value, they would cook 
the whole egg and throw away the whites. 

To-day the latter are much more effective as a curative 
food than the yolks, if no heat reaches them. Coagulated 
albumin is an enemy of life. The use of raw, ice-cold egg- 
whites is increasing all the time under the advice of the most 
successful doctors to-day. 

A careful cook can easily separate the white from the 
yolk, and drop the yolk in hot water and so cook it until 
it is hard, on the principle of shirring; while the white is 
kept from all heat and is served ice-cold when wanted. 
They are a membrane-healer when taken on an empty 
stomach. 

The cooked yolks are useful in many ways. They can be 
kept quite a while and sliced, powdered, or served with 
cream or in sauces. The longer they are kept without 
spoiling the better food they make on acount of their ease 
of digestion. 


I8S 


SIXTY-FIRST LESSON 


“MILK” 


^Pj|REJUDICE exists against the use of milk to such 
an extent that this first and greatest of all natural 
€=*> foods is misunderstood and mistreated by humanity. 
Like everything else that is a necessity there are two sides 
to the question of the value of milk, and we will frankly 
state both in this lesson in order that nothing may be con¬ 
cealed. The popular dislike for this food is summed up in 
the following points against it: 

1. It is difficult to get healthy cows. 

2. It is difficult to get cleanly methods in the dairy. 

3. It is difficult to get the milk handled properly after 
it has left the dairy. 

4. It is difficult to bring milk to the table in an attrac¬ 
tive and palatable form. 

5. Every person who has lesion of the membranes of the 
body, especially in the stomach and its region, as stated 
in the thirty-first lesson, will find milk opposed to such 
condition, and more or less of distress will follow its use. 
Under all other circumstances, milk is easily and naturally 
digested. To realize what this means, you should very 
carefully review the thirty-first lesson, as that of itself is of 
priceless value to the seeker after vitality. 

6. There is a popular idea that milk is an infant food and 
is intended for children, not for strong men and women. 

These six points are urged against its use as a general 
food. But there are facts that belong on the other side of 
the account, and they will be stated at this place: 

A. The strongest body is built of blood, which is a fluid. 
Blood is nothing but milk changed in color and mixed with 
the breakdown of animal life in the body. Milk is the dis¬ 
tillation, popularly stated, of the food that leaves the diges- 




186 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


tive tract, and comes from the contents of the stomach. Solid 
food or liquid food must be macerated by the stomach until 
it becomes a pulp, and is thus prepared to enter into the 
milk state. Therefore the body and its blood can be pro¬ 
duced from nothing but milk, and liquid food precedes milk. 

B. Every human being, man or woman, is a milk pro¬ 
ducer. The column of nutritive fluid that is rising from 
the region below the stomach to join the circulation near 
the heart, is a river of milk. In the male this passes always 
into blood. In the female who is nursing a child, this col¬ 
umn is intercepted and much of its river is turned toward 
the breasts where the glands absorb it for the suckling in¬ 
fant. Thus man and woman give milk. A man can be 
milked much as the cow is milked if a tube is inserted in 
the column of nutritive fluid at the side or back. 

C. The ox is strong, and is fed wholly on grains and 
grass. The old idea of power is still good, and is summed 
up in the expression, “ as strong as an ox.” The ox can be 
milked by an inserted tube. The same kind of nutrition 
that makes the ox so strong is present all the time in the 
cow; but nature interrupts it so that it may be drawn off 
for the use of humanity. 

D. Surely there is no food on earth so closely allied 
to the blood and body of a human being as the milk of 
the cow. The infant, new-born into the world, lives and 
grows and matures on it. The old man, too feeble to di¬ 
gest the tougher foods, can find strength by its use. The 
middle-aged person whose stomach has been broken down 
by errors of diet and cooking, is compelled to turn to milk 
as the one hope of salvation. There is no acute sickness 
that reaches the crisis where life is hung in the balance, but 
demands a straight milk diet for sustenance to carry the 
body through. Eliminate the cow and you must dig graves 
faster than they are being sunk into the earth to-day; and 
we know that they are dug altogether too fast now. In the 
cure of many chronic forms of disease, milk is the best known 


MILK 


187 


medicine. In consumption there is no hope except through 
a diet of milk and eggs. Under a sensible treatment, this 
diet added to the glame habits mentioned hereinafter will 
save ninety-nine victims out of every hundred; and has al¬ 
ready established the grandest record of victories ever 
achieved in any age or clime. In sanatoriums is hung the 
invisible but ever-present sign: “Drink milk or die.” 

E. Cows that are healthy to begin with can be kept so by 
the use of fresh air and sunshine in their yards and barns, 
and constantly carrying away the manure. This is as easy 
as it is to do any other sensible thing in the world. The 
boor who handles the cows and the milk is a disgrace to him¬ 
self, to the community in which he lives, and to an age 
of civilization. Vigilance is the price of safety. This boor 
must be made to feel the penalty of a good set of laws if 
there is no other way to take the criminal filth out of his 
nature. The public is getting after him more and more 
every year; but a strong sentiment from you and your neigh¬ 
bors should be kept alive and growing all the time. 

F. Milk is certainly not brought to the table in an attrac¬ 
tive form. Drank warm from the cow it has more, glame 
than, when cold; but, as it cannot be taken warm, it should 
pass to the other extreme. As soon as milked it ought to 
be left to cool off before being covered, if it is not heated. 
But all fresh milk should be heated by the dairyman if he 
chooses to do so; otherwise it must be cooled off and not 
covered over until all the animal heat has gone out of it, 
or it will acquire the flavor that is not agreeable. 

G. In heating it, let it come to a boil and take it off at 
once; then allow it to cool. Then cover it up and place 
in amid ice to be kept until needed for use. This kills all 
germs in the milk, and undoubtedly is saving thousands of 
lives every month in this land. 

H. To make it palatable, it must be drank at each meal 
with ice in it. There is no clean and pure ice to be had. 
Bad ice put in milk, causes it to become unsafe, as germs 


188 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


of disease are carried in. Even if the ice were known to be 
pure, the water that comes from the melting of the ice in the 
glass of milk, thins the latter and makes it more water than 
milk, and so unpalatable. The milk must be very cold. In 
order to have it so, as soon as the milk has been brought to 
the boiling point, and then taken off and cooled, place some 
of it in a receptacle in a large wooden pail; and around the 
receptacle pack ice and salt. This will freeze the milk in 
about fifteen minutes, and it is then ready to be used in con¬ 
nection with the unfrozen, but ice cold milk in glasses. The 
frozen milk serves as ice to keep the fluid milk exceedingly 
cold; and as the ice thus melts during a meal, you have a 
constantly chilled glass of milk which you cannot drink too 
fast. By the time the frozen ice is all melted in the glass 
you will have finished drinking it. 

To sip milk slowly prevents it from making a mass of 
cheese in the stomach, which may be the case when a glass 
is drank down at once. Therefore the frozen ice holds 
back this temptation. 

There is some trouble for the cook to prepare this form 
of milk; but as it takes the place of rich food, it does not 
add to the work in the pantry; but rather lessens it. We 
have for years used milk in this way, with the result that 
health and vitality have attended the practice. Nothing 
great can be achieved without care and trouble, and espe¬ 
cially vigilance. New ideas are not liked by cooks, and 
you will not readily convert your housekeeper to this plan. 
But it pays, and pays immensely. 


i8g 


SIXTY-SECOND LESSON 


“GERMS OF LIFE” 


8 ACTERIA are small plants that grow wherever 
they can find food. They are visible only through 
the microscope. They are in two classes, the good 
and the bad. The former are not only friends of humanity 
but are actually necessary to the life and growth of the 
human body. The latter are always present, like all ene¬ 
mies, waiting for something to turn up on which they can 
feed. When they find it they become voracious and in¬ 
crease with surprising speed, one of them making a million 
offspring in a few seconds of time; and each of these million 
making its own million, and so on until they set up what is 
called a disease by the poisons they give out, or the destruc¬ 
tion of the tissue on which they feed. 

Doctors sometimes call them the malignant bacteria. 

On the other hand there are benignant bacteria. If you 
plant a garden you will find weeds growing up with the 
valuable products; and if you do not get rid of the weeds, 
you will be deprived of the good which you seek. Every¬ 
thing that is worth while in this world has its enemies and 
its friends; but the enemies are the most aggressive and 
generally win the final victory unless they are successfully 
combated. 

In the outdoor air there is glame or vitality. But in all 
air there are friendly germs that seek out the food of man 
and endeavor to charge it with bacteria that are known as 
the “ germs of life.” In the stomach and all the gastric 
juices these germs become abundant in proportion as food 
is required, and they set up what is known as hunger. 

This fact has been discovered as a certainty in the last 
few years but was always suspected since the advent of 
knowledge on bacteria. 




LIFE ELECTRICITY 


i go 

If your stomach does not need food, the germs of diges¬ 
tion will not be present. As the need of food is approach¬ 
ing these germs are active and begin to multiply fast. The 
more you need something to eat, the more numerous will 
these germs become, until they so agitate the fine nerves 
on which they move that the hunger is almost tormenting. 
This is the plan of nature, and it is a good one. Two 
laws now come into play which should be well understood: 

1. The greater the need of food, the more numerous and 
active will be the germs of digestion. 

2. The more numerous the germs of digestion, the more 
readily will they digest food that otherwise might become 
indigestible in a stagnant stomach. 

On these two laws, hang the mysteries and wonders as 
well as the hygiene of eating and dieting. 

A hungry man will dispose of pie, cake, fried foods and 
other barbarous articles that would cause acute indigestion 
and quick death in a man who had no genuine hunger. To 
be compelled to stimulate appetite is the most senseless act 
ever indulged in by physician or layman. Let the no-appe¬ 
tite stomach have a rest; but, when it begins to get hungry, 
do not treat it as the young women of this era are accus¬ 
tomed to do, send into it cake, candy, ice cream and non-food 
elements; for the healthy condition that attends hunger will 
be ruined by such methods. Hunger in a person who is not 
in absolutely perfect health should be fed by normal foods 
only. 

But the starving man eats and digests anything that is 
within the range of food; for his stomach is full of germs 
of digestion that are created by nature to meet just such a 
condition. 

From the beginning of history, fasting has been employed 
for medical purposes. It has been useful in cleaning out the 
poisons of the body that have accumulated through errors of 
diet, and during its period the germs of digestion have be¬ 
come so numerous that they have been able to build a new 


GERMS OF LIFE 


191 

vitality very readily. More than this, the same germs have 
reached out into the membranes and have healed them. 
But the disadvantages of fasting have been the setting up 
of anaemia and tuberculosis in the body, and the lowering 
of the vitality, causing neuralgia. 

It is much better to eat the normal foods than to be com¬ 
pelled to run risks in these matters; for normal foods will 
attract the germs of digestion and enter into a partnership 
with them. 

But the best of all rules is to rise from eating with still 
some hunger in the stomach. Never satisfy your appetite. 
Lessen the quantity, but eat oftener. You cannot hurt the 
digestive system by too frequent indulgence in food if you 
take only normal kinds of food. 

This then is the road to developing the vital germs of di¬ 
gestion : 

Eat only the normal foods, but eat less in quantity, and 
as often as you please. 

This is not a theoretical rule, but has been applied for 
over thirty years in every kind of test. Other plans have 
failed. Fasting has failed although right in principle for 
part of its work. A perfect diet has failed. Omitting 
breakfasts has failed, and has sent many of its votaries to 
untimely graves with its originator. Medicines have failed. 
Mere hygiene has failed. The march of death has been 
onward, irresistible and awful in its wake of horrors. 

A new regime is required. 

The world of intelligence is just now awakening to the 
truth, and we seek to set forth its laws in this course of 
training in such a manner that they cannot be misunder¬ 
stood. 

The germs of life are also present in the air. Take any 
bread that is new, and that is eaten before the air-germs 
can enter it, and you will find it greatly inferior to bread 
that has been kept for several days after it is made. Any 
person who has pets knows that new bread may kill them, 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


192 

and is sure to do them harm. It is one universal rule to use 
old bread. There are two reasons for this: 

1 . New bread contains carbonic acid, and this is the most 
deadly of all poisons when taken in an ordinary quantity, 
and a slow destroyer of the membranes when taken in slight 
quantities such as are found in new bread, cake and similar 
things. 

2. The baking of bread, subjecting it to heat, has burnt 
up all the germs of life that were in the grain. Nature 
seeks to restore them and does so as soon as the carbonic 
acid leaves the bread, and this occurs in from twenty-four 
to seventy-two hours after the bread comes from the oven. 
The older the bread the more of the vital germs it contains. 
Some cake is likewise rendered good food by being allowed 
to become old; but certain fruits and spices are so hurtful 
to the human body that there are kinds of cake that should 
never be eaten no matter how old they are. 

Citron, dried currants and spices are indigestible at all 
times and nothing can turn them into food. 

It has been seen in the fifty-seventh lesson that distilled 
water lacks something that is in the air and that rain water 
gathers as it descends. So milk that has been heated to de¬ 
stroy all possible germs from the dairy, is benefited by 
coming in contact with clean air before it is frozen or 
cooled. If milk is allowed to get very sour without being 
contaminated by foul germs from dust or receptacles, it 
holds a large proportion of vital germs that serve to sustain 
vitality. But most persons dislike sour milk, it is not rec¬ 
ommended in this course. The principle nevertheless is in¬ 
teresting. 


193 


SIXTY-THIRD LESSON 


“INGEST!VE GERMS” 


g OR MANY YEARS after the value of ingestion 
was known it was supposed that the benefit came 
from the quality of the saliva mixed with the fine 
particles of food in the mouth that were so prepared to 
enter the stomach; but now it is well settled that the glands 
bring out of the blood a large army of bacteria that are 
called popularly “ ingestive germs,” because they mix up in 
the food. Digestion is the separation of the nutritive par¬ 
ticles in the stomach, which are removed from the contents 
there and put into circulation later on; while ingestion 
is not separation, but an in-mixing of something with some¬ 
thing else. 

This in-mixing takes place in the mouth and upper 
throat. The bacteria come from the blood, and are given 
entrance through the buccal glands. The longer food 
stays in the mouth, the more of these germs will come 
through the glands. Therefore the more time you give to 
the food in the mouth, before you swallow it, the greater 
will be the action of the vital germs on it. 

While the “hungry germs’’-that create the desire for 
food in the stomach are necessary for healthy digestion, 
they do not bring so much Life Electricity into the food 
as do the “ vital germs ” that come from the buccal glands 
in the throat or the mouth. 

These “ vital germs ” will not enter the mouth at all 
unless there is genuine food there. Tobacco and gum will 
not attract them. Nor do they come when there is water 
or other liquid present in the mouth. As an experiment 
take a piece of dry cracker and hold it on the tongue. 
There is no fluid at all there. It is very dry where the 
cracker is. But if you are patient the germs of ingestion 




194 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


will begin to creep through the buccal glands, after they 
are assured that there is no water or fluid of any kind in 
the mouth. The dryer the cracker is, the more the “ vital 
germs” will like to work on it; and soon you will find 
the cracker moist. It is being eaten up by germs; and 
will soon be taken into the blood at the glands, if you 
do not try to swallow it. Here is the greatest secret of 
life. Think it over and build on it. Here is the greatest 
cure of stomach troubles. 

It is not altogether new in fact; but the discovery of 
the “ vital germs ” in the mouth is new. 

The old advice to chew your food well has been made 
fun of. Yet had such men as Gladstone, Bismarck and 
others who out-lived their decrepit bodies, been shown the 
way to retain and build vitality, they would have died a 
generation sooner than they did. This practice was in 
use by the Pope, by Queen Victoria, by the men named, 
and by others all of whom reached within nearly ten years 
of a century on an average. 

There are men and women to-day who are keeping 
up the habit of ingesting their food with the “ vital germs,” 
who have passed into the nineties, and who expect to live 
beyond a hundred years. To make fun of all the better 
ideas of life is peculiar to humanity, and has been since 
the grand teachings of the olden days, thousands of years 
ago, and always will be as long as people are disposed to 
be frivolous. When the General Slocum burned and a 
thousand lives were lost by fire and drowning, the serious¬ 
ness of the awful calamity was felt by comparatively few, 
while the majority of the people regarded it as trivial. 

A well-known woman writer for the Sunday papers, in 
a bright article made fun of the fashionable cuts indulged 
in during the operation for appendicitis, and also pictured a 
scene in which some old person was counting the number 
of chews he gave to each mouthful of food, all to the de¬ 
light of many readers; and yet that same female writer, 


INGESTIVE GERMS 


i95 


on the day the article was published, lay dead in her own 
home following an operation for appendicitis. Had she 
paid more attention to the laws of nature than to her 
mockery of them, she might have lived fifty years longer 
than she did. 

If you know you are right, if you know that whatever 
course you pursue it not a mere fad, but a regime pre¬ 
scribed by nature and given to the world by nature’s God, 
then stick to it. But be prepared for the criticisms and 
the fun-making of others. Mockers were abundant in the 
better days of old-time methods, and have not been 
thinned out since, except as the icy hand of death clutches 
their throats and takes them out of life. Be prepared for 
them. But do not swerve from your course. 

Avoid fads. 

The wrong is so prevalent to-day that people grasp at 
anything that is different, and silly fads are now stalking 
all through the land. Be sure you are right, and then be 
brave in adhering to the principles that you adopt. 

In the use of the “ vital germs ” of ingestion, there are 
two laws that you and all your friends can prove with 
absolute certainty: 

1. The longer you retain food in the mouth the greater 
the number of vital germs will enter the food. 

2. The greater the number of vital germs that enter 
each mouthful of food the greater will be the vitality that 
the food will carry to the stomach. 

This vitality is one of the direct sources of Life Elec¬ 
tricity. The process is so simple that it should not be de¬ 
nied a trial. The food that is thus vitalized is made 
purer and sweeter, the stomach and the blood are enriched, 
and the whole body is given a new lease of existence dating 
from the very day when this practice starts and becomes 
persistent. 


ig6 


SIXTY-FOURTH LESSON 


“ABNORMAL FOODS” 

^gfTUDENTS OF LIFE ELECTRICITY may ask 
what connection there is between this course of train- 
ing and normal foods. The answer is that the body 
holds its vitality by reason of what is in the body. It can¬ 
not come from a mere idea or the vague operation of the 
mind. Mind can use matter, but cannot wholly take its 
place. The mind of the Creator did not seek to establish 
life on this planet without the aid of substantial materials 
with which to build. 

The same fact is involved in the development of ex¬ 
cessive vitality. It is born and put into being in the body, 
and what is in the body is the result of the food that 
enters the stomach. What a man is can be traced to 
what he eats. 

It has been stated that the body is built of fourteen 
elements, and the sixteenth lesson discusses the danger of 
using non-food elements. The fourteen true elements ap¬ 
pear in seventeen combinations in order to serve as normal 
foods; but cooking and methods of uniting them often 
ruin their value, and they become poisons to the system. 

Any food is normal that will make good blood. 

All foods that carry a burden to the blood are abnormal 
and unnatural. They should be avoided. These may be 
briefly set forth as follows. 

ABNORMAL FOODS 

FRUITS: — All fruits that have not been ripened, mel¬ 
lowed and made juicy in the manner described in the fifty- 
eighth lesson are abnormal and injure the vitality. Also 
the skins, seeds and pulp of all fruits are hurtful. 

DRIED CURRANTS, citron and spices are injurious. 

CEREALS: — The husk or hull and covering of grains 
should not enter the stomach. Such a product as graham 




ABNORMAL FOODS 


197 


bread, which contains the hulls of the wneat, is very in¬ 
jurious, and its inventor was killed by it. Most breakfast 
foods include these husks and hulls, and some are posi¬ 
tively the sweepings of mill floors. Breakfast foods are 
simply the attempt of some mills to get rid of the parts 
of grain that cannot be utilized in flour and legitimate 
products. Barley, oats, buckwheat, peas and beans should 
be very carefully considered before the stomach is com¬ 
pelled to bear the burden they impose. 

Barley requires strong men who are accustomed to out¬ 
door life and hard activities to use it in safety. To the 
ordinary stomach in America it is wholly indigestible. 

Groats, the inner parts of oats, are suited to humanity; 
but whole oats or rolled oats cannot long be eaten with 
impunity unless made into a Scotch broth, long cooked, 
and strained to get rid of the outer layers of the grain. 

Buckwheat is an irritant to the membranes. 

Peas and beans when ripe have an outer covering which 
has to be broken up into a fine mass before the stomach 
will endure it. This is done in the old-fashioned baked 
beans which were subjected to heat for about fourteen 
hours; or else stewed for nearly a day. As cooked to-day 
all beans and peas when ripe are indigestible. The green 
peas and beans may be digested if cooked for hours; other¬ 
wise they will be hurtful, unless very young and tender. 

CARBONIC ACID foods, such as new raised bread, 
baking-powder breads and cakes, self-raising flour, charged 
waters, ferments and fermenting combinations such as but¬ 
ter and sugar, cream and sugar or similar things, are the 
most common and among the most dangerous enemies of 
the body and its vitality. In this connection lessons sev¬ 
enteen to twenty-two should be reviewed. 

CRISP SURFACES made by frying or baking are 
wholly indigestible, yet they play an important part in at¬ 
tracting the appetite of a person of sedentary habits. Such 
a person should reduce his food one-half and thus find his 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


198 

natural hunger; keeping all the time to the normal foods. 
All the products of the frying pan, also pie crust and 
pastry of every kind are abnormal; but many of them can 
be made to serve their purpose by being chewed but not 
swallowed, as in the case of fried, crisp bacon. 

VEGETABLES that have a tough fibre are hurtful to 
the stomach and weaken the vitality very much, as they 
are a severe tax to the nerves of digestion. In the olden 
times it was the custom to cook all tough vegetables for 
many hours; now they receive altogether too little cooking, 
and are not as valuable as food as formerly. 

SOGGY food and especially potatoes are hurtful. 
When a potato is old enough to make sprouts, it becomes 
waxy in its texture. It is not fit food for humanity in that 
condition. Some of them are made at factories into so- 
called “ pearl tapioca ” and sold as genuine tapioca. Acute 
indigestion and sudden death may follow the use of such 
food. Potatoes should be mealy in order to be useful, and 
cooks at times fail to produce this condition even with good 
potatoes. The baked potato is the best form of cooking this 
vegetable, for it can then be easily discovered if it is mealy. 


m 


SIXTY-FIFTH LESSON 


“CODE OF EATING” 



ANY PERSONS who are interested in this line of 
study will demand some fixed guide in their diet so 
they may gain all the advantages possible. This 
guide differs somewhat from the system that is used in the 
acquisition of health. The goal is not exactly the same. 
A sick person needs to be led into a curative method. 
Many persons who are well, lack Life Electricity and there¬ 
fore need a specific course in order to enable them to gain 
that end. 

As a preparation for the continuance of this study the 
student should carefully review lesson sixty-two as some 
of the most important laws are stated therein. It will thus 
be learned that foods that are not digestible in some cases 
may be easily absorbed in others. 


THE CODE 

1. MILK.— This is the first and best of all natural 
foods. So much has been said of it in the sixty-first lesson 
that the whole of that part of this work must be adopted 
here. 

2. EGGS.— These stand as the second best of all foods. 
The sixtieth lesson must be adopted at this place, as it fully 
explains the value of the egg. 

3. BREAD.— The best bread is that which is made 
from the wheat including some of the inner layers of 
the berry, but excluding the coarse outer cover known 
as bran. The next best is that which is made of pure white 
flour. It may be raised with yeast, but should be baked 
for at least two hours, then allowed to cool and after that 
it should be wrapped in coarse towels and laid away for 
two days. It is then ready to use. This bread is best 
served hot in the form of a dry toast, but it must not be 






200 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


toasted brown nor subjected to much heat. It should be 
eaten as soon as it is heated. 

4. BREAD and MILK.— This is the best of all com¬ 
binations if the bread is that just referred to and the milk 
is prepared as stated in the sixty-first lesson. Nine read¬ 
ers out of ten will laugh at so simple a diet as bread and 
milk, and will place a higher value on meat and fried stuff ; 
but they may not be aware of the fact that President Roose¬ 
velt made many a meal on nothing but a bowl of bread 
and milk, and that too at the time when he was doing his 
most strenuous work in the White House and needed the 
strongest vitality. It was often his most important meal 
of the day, something that he specially delighted in when 
he was alone at the table. Other persons have found the 
most positive benefits from a similar diet. The writer has 
taken this diet for three meals a day for a long time, add¬ 
ing such other things as would complete the meals in a 
simple manner; but the advantages of the bread and milk 
regime are too decided to admit error. The bread at the 
age of forty-eight hours, served hot from the toaster, is of 
itself a complete food containing the fourteen elements re¬ 
quired by nature and in the needed combinations. This 
cannot be said of any other one solid food. The milk also 
is capable of sustaining life. The two therefore set up a 
vast fund of vitality at no expense to the digestive system. 

5. RICE.— In place of the bread, rice may be used, 
or it may be eaten separately. It is the chief food of the 
Japanese, who are the sturdiest and most aggressive people 
on the face of the globe. They eat some vegetables with 
the rice, and also take fruit freely. 

6. CORN MEAL.— The granulated yellow corn meal 
is one of the most important of foods, owing to the great 
power it yields. It supplies muscular energy and has stay¬ 
ing qualities that exceed those of any other first class normal 
food. In hot weather it is heating if taken daily, especially 
in abundance; but if eaten in limited quantities it is bene- 


CODE OF EATING 


201 


ficial on any day and at all meals if desired. At nights for 
the evening meal it is the best in the form of a mush which 
has been cooked all day long. Some of it may be left for 
the next, morning to be heated for breakfast. Milk may be 
taken with the mush, and butter with the breakfast serving. 

7. POTATOES.— Any form of cooking potatoes that 
leaves them light and mealy will be good. Baked potatoes 
are the best. These may be eaten with butter, or with salt 
and milk. The latter combination is to be preferred. 

8. VEGETABLES.— These must be selected by the 
choice of each individual, as some persons are made very lax 
when they depend too much on green stuff; and others are 
subjected to a low vitality that appears in the form of 
neuralgia. If you have either of these conditions you must 
omit fruits and vegetables. 

9. FRUITS.— These must be used under the guidance 
of the instruction contained in the fifty-seventh lesson. 

10. BANANAS.— These are more than a fruit and al¬ 
most a bread. They are helpful all the year round to any 
person who feels the need of something to stay an empty 
stomach. The banana must be dead ripe and its fruit cells 
fully burst, or it may cause serious bowel trouble. It 
must also be clean. It. is best to buy bananas in bunches 
when they are green and very hard, and then give them as 
much of a cleaning as you can without loosening them on 
their stems; and eat them as they reach complete and 
perfect mellowness. They may precede any meal. 

The foregoing Code of Eating contains but ten general 
items; but these have such groups as vegeatables and fruits 
with which to make up the variety that is often sought. 

This Code is designed to create Life Electricity in the 
body. To effect this end there must be no severe tax on 
the digestive organs. There is nothing in the Code that 
will make such a tax. On the other hand it is almost alto¬ 
gether a curative system. It will check the spread of any 
chronic disease and start you on the journey toward health 


202 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


in case you are ill. We will sum up the advantages of the 
Code as follows: 

1. It will reduce the cost and difficulty of providing 
wholesome foods. 

2. It will bring vitality and health in place of weak¬ 
ness and sickness. 

3. It will furnish variety without the expense and trouble 
that are connected with elaborate eating. 

4. It will remove all danger of such maladies as appendi¬ 
citis, kidney disease, liver troubles, heart failure, gastritis, 
acute indigestion, impoverished blood, rheumatism, and all 
kindred complaints; and premature death will be rare here¬ 
after. 

5. It will raise stronger and healthier children, because 
it will give better nourishment through the mothers and by 
direct feeding. Errors of diet cause nine out of every ten 
deaths in infants and children. 

6. It will solve nearly all the problems of health, do 
away with all fads, and restore millions of people who are 
now sickly to a condition of usefulness to themselves, to 
their families and to the country at large. 

The time has come when humanity must choose be¬ 
tween two roads; one of indifference to diet with its ruin 
of health and life; and the other the highway of knowledge 
and experience which leads to safety through a sensible and 
normal Code of Eating. 


GLAME HABITS 

INTRODUCING 

THE DIRECT CULTIVATION 

OF 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 



205 


SIXTY-SIXTH LESSON 


“GLAME HABITS” 


S |ABITS are fastened upon all living creatures by the 
m command of nature. What the brain voluntarily 
® performs several times, it will endeavor to do of its 
own volition without the exercise of the will. The mus¬ 
cles obey the conscious mind, but soon are ready to act au¬ 
tomatically when the same thing has been several times 
repeated. Were it not for this fact no person could play 
the piano. Practice is careful repetition; and this soon be¬ 
comes automatic, which is another name for a habit. 

Some women bite their finger nails a few times and before 
they realize it they have formed the habit of doing this 
same thing all the time. Others move the feet about when 
they sit, others drum, others scratch the face, others arrange 
the hair, and so on through scores of common faults that 
are unconscious habits. They do not realize that they pos¬ 
sess these faults. They cannot see themselves as others 
see them. 

The routine of life is so varied, and in a busy career in¬ 
volves so many duties that the brain is not expected to 
carry a conscious knowledge of them all; nor would it have 
the time to do so and think about the special affairs that arise 
from day to day. There would be no concentration of 
thought on the problems of the hour. Nature therefore 
steps in and ordains that certain things when often re¬ 
peated shall be made into habits and so become self-perform¬ 
ing. 

The result is the creation of all sorts of habits, mostly 
bad, and some good. Criticism and gossip are tools of na¬ 
ture to keep people within bounds. In good company the 
boor is soon cured or ostracized. The form required in 




206 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


human conduct by the rules of etiquette is corrective; it 
constantly calls one’s attention to faults that are objection¬ 
able and lifts the ambitious person out of them. 

Hygiene when not cultivated is a habit; and unhygienic 
methods of living are likewise habits. 

There are two ways of curing fixed errors; one is by 
special efforts made by the act of the will; and the other 
is the substitution of good habits for the bad. When a 
clumsy and ill-bred fellow moves from the country to the 
city, if he has sense and ability as many of this class do in 
large degree, he will soon see why his bucolic ways are a 
handicap to his success in city life. His judgment will tell 
him that he must find a way to correct them. If he has 
no private friends he must find them, and he must secure 
daily hints and helps to enable him to find out what to do. 
In business associations or in semi-social affairs, as in 
church, class, club, or meetings, he will be constantly mak¬ 
ing his defects known to those about him. But in time 
he will ascertain what he ought to do to improve his ways, 
and he will do so. In his case we see the state of un¬ 
conscious possession of offensive habits. He is introduced 
to them and thereafter learns to recognize them himself. 
Then he finds out what he ought to do to improve, and 
this is done by the acquisition of new ways, which when 
practiced for a while become fixed habits; and at the end 
of a few years he is as fully unconscious of his better methods 
as he was of his bad ones. 

In the study of Life Electricity we have found that 
many enemies stand in the way of developing this great 
power. 

By consulting the thirteenth and also the thirty-third les¬ 
sons it will be learned what some of these enemies are es¬ 
pecially in their relation to the fixed habits of the body. 

It is not alone by avoiding errors or by substituting a 
good diet for a bad one that Life Electricity can be culti¬ 
vated in its highest degree; such good methods lead to 


GLAME HABITS 


207 


health, but this course takes the student far beyond the 
attainment of health. 

With the enemies of all classes subdued and with a Code 
of Eating assisting to building the material part of the 
body in its best estate, the way is now opened for entering 
into the grander work of directly cultivating Life Electric¬ 
ity. 

This is to be accomplished through habits. Exercises 
are not to be employed except as stepping stones, and then 
only in a very small part of the way. Constant practice is 
a burden and takes too much time and thought. It has 
been learned that habits may be acquired which will be 
fully as effective as exercises and will become permanent 
so that they will not require attention and daily practice. 

For convenience of terms these have been called Glame 
Habits and there are seven of them in all. 

SEVEN GLAME HABITS. 

1. “ Life Range.” 

2. “ Vital Power.” 

3. “ Brain Balance.” 

4. “ Nerve Terminals.” 

5. “ Glame Exercise.” 

6. “ Vitalized Body.” 

7. “ Magnetic Current.” 


208 


SIXTY-SEVENTH LESSON 


LIFE RANGE 



)ANY THINGS contribute to the sustenance of the 
human body. If it is denied water for a number 
of days it will die of thirst; if it is deprived of food 
for a few weeks it will die of hunger; if the skin is made 
tight by a water-proof covering, death will come in twenty 
minutes from suffocation of the pores; if the oxygen is 
removed from the air, the body will die in two minutes; if 
the nitrogen is taken out, death will come very quickly; and 
if all air is denied the individual will not survive more than 
four or five minutes. In feeding the body if any one of the 
elements needed for its nutrition is lacking, defects and 
disease will soon bring collapse. 

In view of these facts it cannot be claimed that any one 
thing is wholly essential; but, since air is most closely asso¬ 
ciated with the vital impulses of the body, it is always 
given first place in importance. You can live for days 
without water and for weeks without food, but you can live 
only a few minutes without air. Long before the new¬ 
born infant begins to take food it has taken air. The 
very first second of time after it enters the world, its lungs 
expand and it breathes. Long after the aged person has 
taken his last meal on earth he continues to breathe and 
dies in the act of exhaling his last breath. The term of 
existence on earth therefore is spanned by two breaths, the 
first and the final respiration. 

In these facts we see the importance of air as a factor in 
life. 

But as the child grows up he is the result of his habits 
of breathing, or they are the result of his habits of living. 

If he has had the full activity and range of his lungs he 
will enter boyhood and manhood with a different organism 
than if he has been the prey of opposite conditions. For 






LIFE RANGE 


209 


instance any person who is in fine health has a fixed natural 
habit of using the organ of respiration in a much longer 
range than one who is a weakling. 

The lungs are the reservoir into whose bronchial passages 
and tubes we pour the incoming air; but the organ with 
which w T e do the pumping is a big, broad muscle called the 
floor of the lungs and the roof over the stomach, for it 
divides the upper and lower contents from each other. The 
technical name of this organ is the diaphragm. It acts by 
the aid of the leverage it gets from the side muscles that 
are attached to the whole wall of the body. 

Weaklings do not use the diaphragm when they breathe 
during their waking hours, although nature uses it as soon 
as they fall asleep. A person whose vitality is low will 
always breathe when awake with the walls of the lungs. 
Had the same person been the product of natural living, he 
would never breathe when awake in a different manner from 
that used by nature during sleep. This fact has been proved 
all over the globe and under all Conditions, so that it is be¬ 
yond all question. 

More than this, it is true that the activity of the dia¬ 
phragm is always an indication of the state of the vitality. 
While its chief duty is to act as the muscle that pumps air 
in and out of the lungs, it participates in almost every act 
of life. If you are merry, the diaphragm dances, and it is 
its fine motion that puts the ripple in the voice. If you 
chuckle, it does it by a slightly different action. If you 
laugh in moderation, it suits its motion to produce that re¬ 
strained result; but when it leaps beyond the bounds of con¬ 
trol and jumps high and then low, and so continues, then 
you laugh heartily; and the degrees of violence in laughter 
are determined wholly by the degrees with which this organ 
leaps up and down. 

All speech is pushed out by the same organ. All ejacula¬ 
tions, all grunts, all notes of approval or disapproval, all 
song, all surprise, all emotions, all shouts, all screaming, and 


210 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


every expression of fear and joy, or mood after mood run¬ 
ning the whole gamut of the feelings are given their action 
by this same organ. 

If you weep it trembles, and its nervous vibrations cause 
the tear sacs to shed their moisture. If you sob, it is done 
by a varying action of the diaphragm. If you cry, or suffer, 
or shudder, or moan, it all comes from a different move¬ 
ment of the same organ. It sighs by holding a breath in 
the lungs and then letting it out in a rush of air. But it 
sometimes gets caught in its elevated position when the air 
has gone out and will not come back to a normal position, 
the result being the hiccoughs which will prove fatal if this 
organ is not forced to descend. 

These common traits of this organ are just opposite each 
other. In the hiccoughs it is held up by some nervous fault. 
In the sigh it is held down and rises when the air goes out 
in the suspiration so frequent in grief. The Cry of alarm, 
the call for help, the shout of triumph, the scream of fright, 
the sneer, and every expression of every known character 
have their instigation and propulsive force in the organ 
which rests below the lungs, this wonderful diaphragm. 

As it is a part of every phase of existence in humanity, it 
is of the utmost consequence in this study of Life Elec¬ 
tricity. And we shall see later on that it holds the secret 
more closely than any other organ of the body. There can 
be no superior vitality when it is inactive, and very little 
power even when it acts unless it takes on great range, and 
here is found the key to the grandest accomplishment in the 
present course of training. 


211 


SIXTY-EIGHTH LESSON 


“INCREASE OF RANGE’’ 


S OW TO SECURE RANGE is the work which com¬ 
mands our attention in this lesson. The first steps 
is to train the diaphragm to do the breathing in the 
hours of waking. In order to better understand this organ, 
the preceding lesson should be carefully reviewed. When 
you come to the appreciation of this most remarkable mus¬ 
cle, then make up your mind that you will control its habits. 
When you go to sleep at night, nature will whip it up 
and compel it to do its work. But as soon as you get out of 
bed in the morning, the organ will take advantage of you 
and you will think that the chest frame was made to breathe 
with for the reason that it is movable and surrounds the 
lungs. 

So you will be deceived. 

But in attempting to establish range of respiration you 
can at the same time alter the waking habits to such an ex¬ 
tent that the diaphragm will never again shirk its duty. 

In the place of exercises which we wish to avoid as much 
as possible in these lessons, we wish you to utilize the last 
few minutes at night just before you fall asleep in bed. 
Lie on your back. Place one hand on your chest, and the 
other hand on your abdomen below the stomach. Take in 
an ordinary breath and see to it that the chest does not rise; 
but that the abdomen swells during all the time the air is 
being inhaled. 

Now let the breath out slowly, allowing the abdomen to 
fall down, but the chest must remain full and not drop in 
the least. 

Repeat this until you fall asleep. It will make the circu¬ 
lation of the blood -even and regular, and aid very much in 
bringing on natural slumber; so it will not prove anything 




212 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


like an exercise. Many people dislike anything that seems 
to be an exercise. 

Nature adopts repetitions after a while and turns them 
into habits. If you repeat this mode of respiration night 
after night, and then begin it in the morning when you get 
out of bed, which will require only a second or two of time, 
you will soon be surprised to know that nature has made 
the method of breathing a fixed habit all through the wak¬ 
ing hours. All you need to do to prove this is to try it. 

She had made the sleeping habit correct; now she will 
form the waking habit also. 

After you are sure that you have acquired the normal way 
of breathing as an act of the will, then add the following 
change: 

Let every inhalation be made slightly longer than before, 
and each exhalation slightly longer also. These are the 
two ends of each breath. As they become longer, the dia¬ 
phragm will rise higher and descend lower and will so con¬ 
tinue until nature adopts this also. 

The last of all the changes to acquire is that of taking 
the in-going breath in about half the time you devote to the 
out-going breath. The latter should be slow and very steady. 
Now work every night just before falling asleep, adding to 
the range all the while, until you will find your chest ca¬ 
pacity increasing at a gratifying rate. This new acquisition 
will bring energy, life, vitality, and above all immunity from 
sickness. The heart will be made ten times stronger, the 
blood purer and the whole body a new temple. 

Chest exercises that develop the size of the muscular cov¬ 
ering of the lungs, is hurtful to them, for in time the whole 
chest may become muscle-bound. This condition lessens the 
power to breathe deeply, and brings on consumption. True 
chest culture goes under the frame work, and not on the 
outside. 


213 


SIXTY-NINTH LESSON 


“VITAL POWER” 


8 ASED UPON the two preceding lessons the instruc¬ 
tion will now proceed along the same lines for the 
purpose of taking full advantage of the new method 
of breathing. We call it new, although it is only an adop¬ 
tion of nature’s way. The last lesson taught the proper use 
of the organ of breathing, and also the increase of rarige. 
This lesson will teach how to take a gripping breath. Be¬ 
fore it can be done at its best it is well to have acquired the 
specific power of glame as taught in the lessons that will 
follow. But until that has been learned, time can be well 
spent in finding out how to take the gripping breath. 

The first thing to do is to hold the chest frame out, not 
up, and do not throw the shoulders back, nor forward, but 
allow them to spread as widely as possible apart with the 
front of the chest forward but not raised. 

With all the determination of which you are capable, after 
emptying the lungs, take in a full, quick breath as deeply as 
possible. Seem to seize the air in the grip of your will 
power and store it away down in the lungs. 

This method of breathing is very inspiring. It brings all 
the vitality of the lungs into play to receive the in-coming 
rush of air and to turn it into life and energy. 

Many persons who have never been taught to do so, take 
a gripping breath when they come to a place where the air 
seems especially pure and rich in ozone. This practice is 
frequent in the country, in the mountain regions and by the 
salt water wherever there is vigor in the atmosphere. We 
recall the case of a pale young man whom we saw many 
years ago in the mountains, who was afraid of consumption, 
as he had lost four brothers and a sister by that disease. He 
used to arise very early and spend two hours out on the 




214 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 

piazza of the hotel, inhaling the air as deeply as possible by 
this process known as the gripping breath. We saw him day 
after day for five weeks, and from a pallid youth on the 
verge of disease, he changed into a ruddy-faced young fellow 
of health and vigor. We saw the dirty white of his face 
give way to a faint pink, and this later on to a flush of red. 
All the while he was gaining in chest capacity. We asked 
him if he had been taught to take these gripping breaths, and 
he replied that they had occurred to him without help or 
suggestion, unless, as he thought, they had been inspired by 
his dead mother. The life was saved, and still remains on 
earth in the full vigor of health. 

And that was all he did to save it. 

Learn to take the gripping breath in connection with the 
suggestions made in the thirty-seventh lesson. 

Then do likewise in connection with a review of the thirty- 
ninth and fortieth lessons. 

After these, if you are in any of the vital periods men¬ 
tioned in the forty-first lesson, or in the next five lessons 
thereafter, take advantage of them by using the gripping 
breath as often as you wish. You must breath at all times. 
You do not stop your duties to respire. It takes no more 
time to do it in a right way than in a wrong way, nor in 
a better way than you have ever done it before. 

Try to understand this lesson by reading it several times, 
and make up your mind to adopt this new kind of breath¬ 
ing whenever occasion permits. You will gain in power 
and vitality all the while; and, if you have the courage 
or character to persist in it, you will become a new being by 
so doing. 


215 


SEVENTIETH LESSON 


“BRAIN BALANCE” 

g OR THE PURPOSE of avoiding the technical side 
of this question we will pass quickly over the physi¬ 
ological account of the structure of the body and take 
a popular view of its working machinery. It is best under¬ 
stood when it is regarded as a machine having its own 
boiler, fuel, furnace, ash-pit, electrical generators, electrical 
storage batteries, wires, currents, engineer and automatic 
service. Surely the human body is a wonderful piece of 
work! 

The bones are the machine. They are moved by mus¬ 
cles, two to each bone, one muscle to pull it one way, and 
the other muscle to pull it the other. This is very simple, 
yet ingenious. But as the muscles have no originating 
power, an electrical current is employed to contract them 
and thus move them. To carry such a current there must 
be wires, and the nerves are such wires, while the electrical 
fluid is the flow of life along the nerves. To store such life 
there must be reservoirs and we find ganglionic cells, or hu¬ 
man electrical storage batteries all through the body. 

The power then is electrical. 

But this pow T er must be generated. As in mechanical elec¬ 
tricity there must be the steam engine to generate the cur¬ 
rent, so the human body has its furnace and engine. Coal 
is carbon, so is wood. Nothing but carbon will burn in any 
engine, human or mechanical. The diet of every person that 
has any energy-giving part must contain carbon. All fats, 
creams, sugars, sweets, starches, flour of every kind, and 
similar foods are the fuel and the sole source of fire-energy 
in the human body. 

This fuel burns up in the life of the individaul and is 
always appearing as ashes in the ash-pit, or bowels, or else 
is burnt up in the blood and tissue and there is found as 




2 l6 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


carbonic acid. What is not carbon passes down to the ash¬ 
pit, as in the case of coal and wood in a furnace. What is 
carbon passes into the blood and there is burned up, giving 
out its energy in the constant formation of electricity, dying 
as it makes this sacrifice, and its ruin is carbonic acid, while 
its offspring in energy is electricity. 

This new-made power goes into the storage batteries, the 
ganglionic cells, and there is drawn forth by two commands: 

1. The command of the conscious will in the brain. 

2 . The command of the automatic will in the brain. 

In the latter case the will is exercised as a habit, but is 
nevertheless just as effective as if it were each time the di¬ 
rect conscious work of the mind. 

In the human body there are endless wires or nerves. 
Each nerve has a multitude of branches and each branch has 
many fibres and terminals, numbering so many millions that 
we could not attempt to count them. But they are all 
nerves and are fed by the storage batteries. 

In the brain there are countless millions of cells that 
make up the structure of the governing organ of life. For 
every nerve-terminal in any part of the body there are brain- 
cells that act by change when the nerve-terminals act. 

The brain controls the whole body, but in turn must be 
stimulated by the whole body. When some part of the body 
refuses or neglects to act, some part of the brain becomes 
weak, soft or inactive, and so suffers. The distribution of 
the activities of the body over its parts will stimulate the 
governing organ in all its parts, and this is what is called 
brain balance. 


217 


SEVENTY-FIRST LESSON 


“THE TEN DIGITS” 

OWN THE ARMS a multitude of large nerves de¬ 
scend to the hands, and these large nerves are like 
ropes made of countless strands. In the hands these 
strands divide and run to the fingers, and are so numerous 
that they are almost beyond comprehension in their multi¬ 
plicity. Experiments carried on for many years have ascer¬ 
tained beyond all doubt that each one of the ten digits is 
controlled by a portion of the brain, as the nerves from the 
digits stimulate that organ all through its compass. 

Owing to the crossing of the great mass of nerves, the 
right half of the brain is related to the left half of the 
body; and the left half of the brain is related to the right 
half of the body. 

When the right hand moves, there is an arousing in count¬ 
less parts of the left lobe of the brain; not in the whole of 
that lobe as a mass, but in places distributed throughout it. 
When one finger moves, the same scattered and widely dis¬ 
tributed activity among the brain cells follows. When the 
hand moves as a whole, the nerves that are engaged are less 
a stimulant to the brain-cells than when the fingers move in 
complicated details. 

Life Electricity is aroused as a habit by the increased tone 
of the brain in balance. 

All parts of the brain are affected by the ten digits, 
which are the fingers and thumbs; and are to a less extent 
affected by the feet and toes in action; and to a still less ex¬ 
tent by the activity of the general body. But the key of 
power for arousing and stimulating the brain rests with the 
ten digits. 

Here is a fact that seems hard to explain. It has been 
stated in scientific books and is well known among learned 
men, but the general public seem to stare at the assertion 





2l8 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


with open mouth as though it were incomprehensible; but 
we will repeat it here: 

Every time the little finger makes the smallest motion, 
millions of cells in the brain are aroused, pass through a state 
of stimulation, die and give way to the impulse of new-born 
brain-cells that come to take their place. 

The greater variety of motion that each finger performs, 
the more power is aroused in the brain by so doing. This 
is not because the finger moves the brain, but because, in 
order to impart motion to the finger, the brain must burn 
out some of its electrical life and replace it with newer and 
better life. This is true of all activity, unless it is excessive. 

To live is to act. 

Constant repetition of the same motions cause the brain to 
run in ruts, and original power is thus limited, no matter 
how great it may be. The thing to be desired is variety of 
action. The left side of the brain of a right-handed person 
is always different in shape from the right side, because it 
is fed by the varied activities of the right hand. The re¬ 
sult is that the right side of the brain is the first to fail 
when decreptitude comes on. In paralysis the left side of 
the body or the left arm or leg will generally feel the shock 
first. When the circulation of the blood is weakened from 
any cause the left foot and leg become cold first, or are made 
the victims of other changes. 

Less than a hundred years ago a man conceived the idea 
that, if the ten digits of the two hands were made to do an 
equal amount of work in the finer details of action, paralysis 
would never be known. As this malady is the common be¬ 
ginning of the breakdown in a majority of mature persons, 
it is of the highest importance to note the result of experi¬ 
ments and observation following the adoption of the above 
idea. 

Enough is now known to enable the law to be laid down 
with certainty that the varied use of the ten digits as a fixed 
natural habit will ward off paralysis, and also prevent weak 


THE TEN DIGITS 


219 


circulation of the blood; two great ends worthy of attain¬ 
ment. 

The left hand, being generally used only for large motions 
and not in the small detailed motions of great variety, does 
not feed the right lobe of the brain as it should; and the 
result is that the heart is deprived of that portion of its 
power that is fed to it by the brain. 

Aside from these negative benefits, the use of the digits 
of the left hand has been one of the most powerful agencies 
in setting up a strong vitality in the nervous system, due to 
the influence which the brain under this complete stimula¬ 
tion, is able to exert throughout the entire body including 
the nervous system and the electrical life that is set up by 
the burning carbon in the blood and tissue as stated in the 
preceding lesson. 

Assuming that you are right-handed the work to be done 
in your case is to adopt the suggestions in the lessons that 
will follow. If you are left-handed, you are to reverse the 
hands and in all other respects put into practice the methods 
stated therein. 

The fingers and thumbs are so constituted that they quickly 
take up the new work assigned them and adapt themselves 
to every condition with alacrity. It must be remembered 
that the fine nerves at the ends of the fingers are wonder¬ 
fully sensitive and may be educated to recognize the smallest 
surfaces by a little practice. Persons who become blind find 
the use of these terminal nerves very important, for the 
finer the work they are made to do, the more they take the 
place of the eyes. “ Blind people see with their fingers,” is 
an old and true saying. 


220 


SEVENTY-SECOND LESSON 


“THE LEFT HAND” 


f OU SHOULD carefully review the two preceding 
lessons in order that you may understand the princi¬ 
ples which govern this habit as it is now to be taught. 
It is assumed that you are naturally right-handed. If so, 
you are also right-footed. To prove this go into any dense 
woods and try to find your way out with no aid except your 
idea of a straight line. Or seek blindfolded to walk across 
a large lawn. In every instance you will describe a circular 
course. All persons lost in the dense woods go in circles, 
and always to the left if they are right-handed. 

This is due to the fact that their right side is more power¬ 
ful in its movements than the left side, and pushes the body 
around. In a hall not more than fifty feet long and forty 
feet wide, twenty persons, each being blindfolded in turn, 
attempted to proceed in a straight line, some seeking to cor¬ 
rect their tendency to go to the left by stepping to the right; 
and yet not one of them succeeded. All went away from 
the straight line and always to the left. 

Of course the whole of the left side of the body, includ¬ 
ing the arm and leg as well as part of the torso, is con¬ 
trolled by the right lobe of the brain; but as that lobe has 
not been stimulated to the high degree of vitality that has 
been the good fortune of the other part of the brain, the left 
hand and left leg as well as the left half of the torso are 
weaker than the right. 

You do many things with your right hand that you cannot 
possibly do with your left. Try it. Make a list on the 
margin of this page of the many motions that you make 
with the five digits of the right hand instead of the left, or 
both alike. 




THE LEFT HAND 


221 


Having found about three hundred such motions, now try 
to use both hands alike; and, better still, seek to employ the 
five digits of each hand with all the small detailed and varied 
movements that you can think of. 

Do not attempt this as an exercise, but strictly as a habit. 
Think to-morrow morning when you dress how many little 
things you can give your left hand to do, especially in its 
fingers and thumb, and in the greatest variety of action. 
Such work is stimulating; it is interesting; it is often amus¬ 
ing; it is always sure to wake up the brain and take away 
the heaviness that so often attends it. 

One or two lines of activity will not do. One person may 
use the piano with both hands alike, or the typewriter with 
the left hand as well as with the right; but these are too 
limited for effect in the great work of building up an exces¬ 
sive degree of vitality in the brain and through that organ 
in the whole body. 

You do not write with the left hand, nor turn the leaves 
of a book, not button your boots or clothing, nor cut your 
food, nor sharpen your pencils, nor brush your teeth, nor 
sew, nor comb your hair, nor shave, nor count your money, 
nor paint, nor wash your body, nor do the scores of little 
and great things that arise momentarily day in and day out. 

Put your mind on this subject and note how many mo¬ 
tions might be made with the left hand that now are given 
over entirely to the right. It will not require time or spe¬ 
cial practice to gradually bring the unused hand into some 
of the duties of the right. After a start has been made, you 
will find it a pleasure to keep up the practice. Once in a 
while attempt to write a word with the left hand; that is, 
when you have nothing to do and wish to be amused. 

The men and women who have been skilled in handi¬ 
work, especially the finer kinds, have never been subject to 
paralysis, heart disease or low vitality. There has always 
been something in the skilful use of all the ten digits that 
inspired great vitality through the stimulated brain. This 


222 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


has been increased where the work has been varied and the 
details numerous, on the principle that more brain-cells are 
stimulated by the increase of fine motions of all the fingers 
and all their parts. 

But for the purpose of this course of training the most that 
is required is the gradual drawing of the five digits of the 
left hand into the general duties and work that has been 
for the most part done by the right hand; and this is to 
be accomplished in little minutes at odd times of the day. 
Begin with the first rising in the morning, and continue all 
through the period until breakfast time, using the left hand 
as much as the right and also for the difficult details of the 
work. From the very start you will find this practice a 
brain stimulant. 

After a while it will become a habit, and you will no 
more omit it than you would cease to breathe. It will soon 
become a second nature with you. 

It is an excellent habit. 

It will, in other lines of development, make you more 
graceful, more refined in action, more accurate in movement, 
and more skilful in all respects. Nothing will so readily re¬ 
move the faults of clumsiness, awkwardness, ungainliness 
and roughness in the muscles of the arms and fingers. There 
are many ways in which these advantages will benefit you; 
but above them all is the stimulation of the brain-cells that 
ordinarily fail and that are the first to suffer when age comes 
on with its descrepitude. You will not be feeble at any 
time. 

This practice of keeping the life of the brain in balance 
is the Third Glame Habit. 


223 


SEVENTY-THIRD LESSON 


“NERVE TERMINALS’’ 

S Y REFERENCE to the seventieth lesson you will see 
it stated that there are endless wires or nerves in the 
human body; that each nerve has a multitude of 
branches, and each branch has many fibres and terminals, 
numbering so many millions that we could not attempt to 
count them. In the brain there are countless millions of 
cells that make up the structure of that organ. These cells 
and the nerve terminals are connected together and act to¬ 
gether. 

Every movement made by any part of the body, and espe¬ 
cially by the ten digits, carries to the terminal nerves the 
flowing currents of Life Electricity as they are sent forth 
from the storage batteries. These currents may be wasted 
by what is known in the study of personal magnetism as 
leakage, if the motions of the digits or other parts are made 
automatically, nervously, or otherwise so as to cause a con¬ 
tinual unconscious flow of energy. It is on this principle 
that the fussy, fidgety, restless person has no vitality to 
spare, but is weak and on the verge of neurasthenia, or 
nervous breakdown. Such a person will make you tired to 
watch him, and likewise makes himself tired by the waste of 
vital currents. 

Any movement or motion, however fine, that is made at 
any terminal nerve in the body, if allowed to run away 
with itself without the control of the conscious will, takes 
life out of the body. When such a current is met by the 
resistance of something that is actually performed the result 
is just the opposite; for the current is thrown back on the 
nervous centers and tends to increase their power. 

An illustration of this fault and its correction may be 
had in rather a homely way by the two methods of handling 
a rifle that is being discharged. Its power of resistance may 




224 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


be left to run in its own way, as when you hold the stock of 
the gun several inches from your shoulder. It kicks, and 
kicks so hard that you are hit a severe blow by the butt end 
and possibly sent over backwards. On your shoulder you 
will find a contusion that soon becomes black and blue. If 
you do not allow the gun to kick, as when you hold its 
stock tightly to your shoulder with no space in which the 
rifle can move when discharged, the kick is wholly taken up 
by the pushing motion imparted to your body and there is no 
blow at all. If you try to push a nail into a hardwood 
board with a hammer held at the head of the nail, the latter 
will not move at all, although you may exert a hundred 
pounds of energy. But if you take the same hammer and 
strike the nail several blows of a few pounds each, the work 
is done in a few seconds. 

Power therefore is affected by resistance. 

A person who is nervous, fidgety and restless, who makes 
several empty motions for one that performs anything, is the 
victim of impulses that strike blows; whereas resistance 
would take up the energy without impulsive waste. An¬ 
other way of illustrating this loss is one that will only be 
understood by the man who has attempted to strike some 
object, but who has missed and his blow has ended in the 
empty air, wrenching all the muscles and tendons that were 
involved in the motion. Some of the most serious strains 
and injuries have resulted from this accident of striking 
nothing. 

But there is a more subtle law at work in the losses of 
motion that occur in nervousness. The current of life 
energy runs out and is wasted, leaving the supply weakened; 
whereas, if the terminal nerves meet with resistance, the cur¬ 
rent is turned back into the ganglionic cells that store the 
electrical power for the human body. 

This law has been tested in many ways for more than 
twenty years, and has been for that length of time one of the 
basic principles in the cultivation of personal magnetism. 


NERVE TERMINALS 


225 


While no attempt is made in this course to use it for mag¬ 
netic purposes it is neverthless of value in developing and 
especially in saving Life Electricity, as is described in the 
thirteenth lesson. So many helpful facts are stated in that 
lesson that it should be reviewed in this connection. 

A steam engine that has countless small leaks all about 
it, will not possess energy enough to do one-tenth of the 
work for which it was built. Every one of these leaks of 
power that you can stop will save so much loss. If you stop 
them all, you save all the loss that comes from methods of 
waste. But an engine that is so built that its energy after 
being expended in small part only is made to come in on 
itself and renew its own source of power, is of an affirmative 
value. 

The law under which we are now working is a great one, 
but the uses we are making of it are such that they can be 
performed with but slight attention and no effort at all by 
every student of these lessons. The purpose is to attack 
the bad habit of making so many waste motions for accom¬ 
plishing the details of muscular action. It is estimated that 
a person of average activity, not doing continuous work all 
day long, makes ten thousand small motions in the waking 
hours from one day to another; and of these ten thousand 
motions, seven to nine thousand of them are lost for the rea¬ 
son that they do not hit the mark or do the work intended. 

They are called “ lost motions.” 

In proportion as a man or woman grows nervous these lost 
motions will increase; and the result is still greater weak¬ 
ness ending in insomnia and death from neurasthenia or else 
by suicide. This is the oft repeated history of this disease of 
the nervous system. 


226 


SEVENTY-FOURTH LESSON 


“LOST MOTIONS” 


^j^2)EN THOUSAND small and large activities of the 
nerve terminals make the average day of a person 
who is not working hard. Some individuals are so 
nervous and fidgety that they expend a thousand lost mo¬ 
tions in a few minutes, the mere stopping of which would 
save them a vast loss of vitality. They are restless when 
they are resting. They make numerous small actions when 
they think they are still. 

But this lesson is intended chiefly for those persons who 
lose a large majority of motions in every little thing they 
try to do. While the loss of one of these movements will 
not cause an appreciable defect in the vitality, the accumu¬ 
lation of them is bound to do so. If you allow a drop of 
water to fall on the head, you will not feel its results, as it 
is a mere trifle; but if you allow a continuous succession of 
drops to fall on the same part of the head, the tiny blows 
will set the nerve-terminals vibrating until they bring on 
a leak in the vitality of the brain that will end in insanity. 
There is not one person living who can withstand this kind 
of attack. 

Study yourself if you can. 

It is a difficult thing to do, for you are accustomed to 
make all motions automatically, or without consciousness of 
their occurrence. 

For this reason it is better to invite some friend to watch 
you and make a record of all the fine motions you make, 
counting those that are not effective. Yet, even for this, 
it will require one who has a keen sense of observation. 

The motions to be recognized are those that occur when 
you try to do something, especially with the fingers, and can¬ 
not do it in the least number of movements possible. Some 
of the commonest of the day’s activities are set forth here; 




LOST MOTIONS 


227 


yet they are but a small proportion of the whole list, which 
will vary with the individual. Many of these may be per¬ 
formed with either hand, and will thus combine the preced¬ 
ing lessons with this one. 

1. Pick up a book from the table, and put it back. Try 
to pick it up with the left hand at the back of the book, then 
with the right hand at the back of the book, then with the 
left hand at the front of the book, then with the right hand 
at the front of the book, then at the top and finally at the 
bottom of the book. In doing these things, note how many 
motions are lost; also how many might have been lost had 
you not been trying to avoid all losses. 

2. Try to put on a coat or jacket, and insert the right 
arm first, then take it off, and begin over again, inserting the 
left arm. Note what motions are lost. 

3. Put on a pair of stockings, noting how many motions 
you require; then repeat several times and see if you are able 
to save some of the movements. 

4. Do the same with a pair of gloves. 

5. Take half a dozen knives and forks and place them 
in certain positions on the table; then pick them up and put 
them in a box; then repeat, noting how many motions may 
be saved. 

6. Thread a needle, and note what improvement you can 
make in so doing by using great care not to lose any mo¬ 
tions. 

7. Cut a half column or more of reading matter from a 
newspaper, and repeat for the purpose of saving motions in 
so doing. Some persons make a perfect record in this ex¬ 
periment, while others require several repetitions before do¬ 
ing so. It is very easy compared with putting on gloves or 
stockings with no loss of motion. 

8. Try to dress in the morning with no loss of movement 
in so doing. The only difficulty in this practice is in being 
unable to take a true account of yourself. Cultivate the 
habit of close observation. 


228 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


g. For a man a very good experiment is to put on a 
collar or a pair of cuffs without any unnecessary activity. A 
woman has many intricacies in dressing that will afford 
her excellent opportunity for testing this law of vitality. 

From the moment when you arise from bed in the morn¬ 
ing until you retire at night there are countless ways in 
which you may apply this simple rule of conduct. They 
will not take extra time to perform them aright; but, on the 
other hand, they will save much time as soon as you have 
cultivated the new and perfect habit of doing everything 
with no loss of motion. 

Make it a habit, not an exercise. 

Two things are required; one is the attention of the mind 
on the subject, and the other is the determination to per¬ 
sist in this practice until the new habit has been well 
formed. When it has once been established, then you will 
not have to think of it, for it will become automatic. 

The remarkable gain in vitality that follows what seems 
on its face to be a very simple custom is one of the mysteries 
of life. Many persons who have adopted this new habit 
have praised it so excessively that no man or woman who 
has not given it a thorough test should neglect to do so at 
once. It will pay. The scientific processes have been set 
forth in the preceding chapter and in earlier parts of this 
book, so the real reason for the great accumulation of vital¬ 
ity will not be hard to understand if the subject is carefully 
investigated. 


22g 


SEVENTY-FIFTH LESSON 


“GLAME EXERCISE 



?E COME now to the only actual exercise in this 
course of training; and it consists of but one prac¬ 
tice which later on merges into a habit. It is one 
of the most remarkable exercises that we have ever known, 
and has held a foremost position for more than thirty 
years. It is so simple in its nature that some persons have 
regarded it as too slight to be given so strict a title as an 
exercise. 

By reviewing the first lessons in this course it will be 
seen that the word glame has been in use for a long time, 
and that it had a very interesting origin, as is stated in the 
fifth lesson. It is advisable to carefully re-read the latter. 

This word, glame, has not been in public use for the rea¬ 
son that it has not been advertised; but those men and 
women who had private knowledge of what it stood for, 
were constantly in the habit of using it. Once at the White 
Mountains, Charles Sumner spoke of a clear morning and 
the bracing air as “ full of glame.”— Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher, in a sermon in Brooklyn uttered these words: 
“ To-day we meet again after some weeks of absence, and 
we all come back filled with glame and new life.”— Ralph 
Waldo Emerson in a lecture given in Boston contrasted the 
vitiated air of the city with the “ glame-filled air of the 
country.”— Rev. Stanley L. Krebs, one of the best known 
of more recent orators, has a lecture now before the public 
entitled, “ Grit, Glame and Gumption.” And in many lit¬ 
tle ways the word is used but hardly noticed by those who 
hear it unless they are Ralstonites. 

But the name of the thing is not so important as the 
thing itself. Long before an attempt was made to find a 
name for glame, the essence of life itself had attracted con¬ 
siderable attention; beginning with the observation of the 





230 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


fine spirits of those men and women who, without the aid of 
stimulation, were filled with vitality and good feeling. 

In this one condition alone was supposed to rest the secret 
of health, vitality and the power to resist disease. The 
habit was formed among members of the early organization 
of observing and classifying people according to their pos¬ 
session of what was then often referred to as “ animal spir¬ 
its.” The people so classified were not necessarily connected 
with the society; some were in it, but the majority were 
outside. The term “ animal spirits ” was not used to mean 
flippancy or mere buoyancy of good feeling; but vigor of life. 

The rotundity of the face and body, or the ruddy com¬ 
plexion, had no place in the reckoning; for some persons 
have these attributes of the flesh when they are far from well. 
Cheerfulness is not the same thing as vigor of life; but often 
attends it, and is more or less conducive to it. 

Some persons were known to possess such vigor, and they 
at the same time had brightness of eye, the pupil being bril¬ 
liant and the white being clean; two of the most conclusive 
proofs of glame in the body. No assumed buoyancy can 
mislead the expert who knows where to look for signs of 
health. 

The early organization referred to found at last a total 
of two hundred men and women of their acquaintance who 
could be classed-; and in the first division of that number 
there were known to be only eleven persons who had natural 
glame. Six of these were men and five were women, all be¬ 
tween the ages of thirty and forty. 

Since then may thousands have been classified, and glame 
has been found in all ages from twenty to seventy. 

But the eleven referred to gave evidences of a natural 
possession of the gift. No one had taught them. They did 
not know they were so highly favored by nature. But they 
afforded valuable study to the investigators who sought the 
reasons for their better vitality. One of the eleven was 
stricken by a disease that required a high state of vitality 


GLAME EXERCISE 


231 


to pull through; the cause being the raging of an epidemic 
to which the individual was exposed for a long time without 
food or sleep. The doctors all said they had never seen such 
an exhibition of vitality as in that case. Some years later 
two others of the eleven were in a railroad disaster and so 
badly injured that death seemed inevitable; yet both got 
well; and the physicians were amazed at the display of 
vitality that intervened to save them. All eleven are alive 
to-day, although scattered in various parts of the world. 

In studying them it was found that they possessed tense 
nerves and alert muscles, even in moments of resting. 

It is very easy to discover in any person the tense condi¬ 
tion of the nerves and alert muscles. You might not at first 
know them, but after a little familiarity with what is meant, 
you would be able to recognize them even at a distance 
away. The person whose nerves are tense is alive in all 
parts of the body. The head is centered over the center of 
the neck. The chest stands out in front, but the shoulders 
are not thrown back, nor the chest raised up. The inward 
muscles hold up the vital organs. Every function is per¬ 
formed with ease and greater nutrition is supplied to the 
whole body and all its parts. 

The knees are firm and solidly carried with each step. 
There is an elasticity of muscle in leg, foot and arm. Even 
the walk is buoyant and springy. 

Now when eleven persons of acknowledged vitality whose 
eyes are bright, with brilliant pupils and clean whites, 
which indicate beyond doubt the possession of the most per¬ 
fect health, are found, all without exception, to possess the 
other attributes that have just been described, and to have 
come by them without practice, exercise or regime as far as 
they had conscious knowledge, then full faith must be had 
in those attributes as contributing causes. 

These were the starting points. 

Observation continued for years and hundreds more were 
found who could be classified. In every instance the same 


232 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


results were reached. At last one man who seemed to be 
superior to all the others in evidences of health came to the 
knowledge of the investigators, and he made the following 
statement to them: 

“For years I have tried to find out why some men were 
more alive than others. At last I drew the conclusion that 
they had fallen into habits of which they knew nothing, but 
that were good for them. Their flesh seemed to be alive, 
their nerves alive and their lungs alive, like one who goes 
out into the fresh morning air and catches a few deep breaths 
and feels better for it. He sets himself as for a task, and 
in this way livens up his nerves. This setting oneself is the 
secret. If a man does it without knowing that he does it, 
he gains no more than another man who does it purposely. 
At least that is the way I reasoned and I have gained won¬ 
derfully by the practice.” 

Thus by observation a man put into the form of an exer¬ 
cise the very principle that he had discovered in the fixed and 
natural habits of others, and he became like them in vitality 
and vigor of life. 

This idea is not an idle one. It carries in itself the se¬ 
crets of culture of every kind, and of all learning and wis¬ 
dom. Why should not one man adopt in his daily existence 
the habits that some other man has come upon by accident? 


233 


SEVEN TY- SIXTH LESSON 


“THE THUNDERSTORM” 

IGHTNING rushes through the air with violent 
\|p(l s P ee< ^ anc ^ gives rise to the sound of thunder. From 
the latter is derived the name of the summer storms, 
beginning generally with the vital month of May and con¬ 
tinuing until growth is lessened in outdoor life. As me¬ 
chanical electricity, of which lightning is one form, seeks 
as a rule a line of transit, there is not often noted the dif¬ 
fusing effects of this agency. 

But an interesting case came to our attention. An 
orchard was infested with insects that could not be conquered 
by the efforts of man, and they threatened to ruin all the 
trees. One afternoon a thunderstorm that lasted less than 
eight minutes swept over the land, attended by the kind of 
lightning that diffused itself over large areas as it came to 
earth. This was explained afterwards as being caused by 
the great volume of rain in the air that served as a con¬ 
ductor to carry the electricity in all directions. That is, 
the lightning accompanied the rain and thereby became dif¬ 
fused or scattered. 

The widely-spreading electricity lost most of its severity 
as it rushed through all parts of the infested orchard, and 
no harm was done to the trees; but wherever the lightning 
went the insects were instantly killed. The power was too 
great for their small bodies, but not enough to injure the 
larger forms. By this means the valuable orchard was 
saved. 

All nature Contains electricity. There is no life that is 
free from it, and no operation of any law of the universe 
can continue in its absence. Faraday, the most eminent au¬ 
thority on the subject, believed that a drop of blood con¬ 
tained enough electricity to generate a thunderstorm. 






234 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


There is electricity in and out of the body. It is abundant 
in one drop of blood, and overwhelmingly present in the 
volume of life that dwells in man. 

The day will come when scientists will understand fully 
the fact that the ganglionic cells in the human body are 
storage batteries of actual electricity that is more closely 
allied to the mechanical kind than we now dare to assert; for 
it is discharged and travels along the nerves which are elec¬ 
trical wires. The central batteries are well known in physi¬ 
ology; the nerves are well understood to be wires; and the 
discharges of currents can be measured, as they have been 
measured thousands of times. 

We have shown that mechanical electricity travels along 
fixed conductors, or that it seeks and traverses paths of its 
own. We have also shown in the case of the orchard thun¬ 
derstorm that lightning, when the air is full of rain, will dif¬ 
fuse and scatter instead of running in fixed channels. 

Merely for the sake of illustration we wish to call the 
electricity that follows the nerves of the body, or the wires 
over the land, mechanical; and the kind that was diffused in 
the orchard, glame. This is taking us out of the study of 
the human body for a moment, and bringing us to see in 
nature a kind of electricity that is diffused, as in the orchard. 
Glame, therefore, may be called diffused electricity, and as 
such it may exist in the form of lightning in the thunder¬ 
storm. 

Of course there is moisture through all the body. When 
the membranes are in fine health, they are very moist, and 
glame is their best friend. When the blood courses through 
the veins and fine vessels, then health is the greatest, and 
human electricity could be readily diffused. 

These facts are stated for the purpose of showing that 
there is abundant opportunity for diffusing electricity all 
through the body. 

Practically all disease to-day is caused by bacteria which 
enter the organism and await an opportunity for multiplying 


THE THUNDERSTORM 


235 


at some part of it. As diffused electricity during the thun¬ 
derstorm in the orchard killed the insect pests that were de¬ 
vouring the valuable trees, so glame which is diffused hu¬ 
man electricity is able to traverse the body in all its parts 
and slay the bacteria that have taken up their abode there. 

Now special design is everywhere apparent in nature, as 
is conclusively shown in the lessons on Physical Religion of 
the Ralston Health Club. Special design manifests itself 
in many ways. Thus, in one class of cases, weeds start 
more slowly than good seed in the ground; and if the soil 
is free from them when good seed is planted the latter will 
be up ahead of their enemies. Were this not so, then hu¬ 
manity would not be able to raise its crops. Another in¬ 
stance of special design is found in the fact that bad bac¬ 
teria are killed at a comparatively low temperature; while, 
on the other hand, it requires the highest temperature to 
destroy good bacteria. Still another instance is found of 
special design in the fact that glame will kill the disease- 
bacteria in the body, while it builds up and increases the 
beneficent bacteria on which life depends. 

These are evidences of the presence somewhere of a power 
that has an ever-conscious personal knowledge of the needs of 
man and is walking side by side with humanity all along the 
way of life; for such care and watchfulness cannot come from 
accident or a blind law. 

During the past thirty years many thousands of experi¬ 
ments have been made in developing glame in the body until 
it has been found to work exactly in the same way as the 
diffused lightning of the orchard thunderstorm. It differs 
from the electrical currents that travel from the storage bat¬ 
teries in the nervous system along the nerves as wires, for 
it is diffused into all parts. It goes with the blood; enters 
the lungs; stimulates the heart with a new life; acts upon 
the stomach; arouses the membranes; clarifies the brain; 
adds to the power and keenness of the senses; and destroys all 
enemies in its path. 


236 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


Among the best illustrations of this new power are the 
many cases of fights with tuberculosis. This disease is well 
known as due to the eating of the tissue by countless billions 
of bacteria or germs that cannot be reached. In consump¬ 
tion, which is pulmonary tuberculosis, the germs are at work, 
and the victim is made helpless. Antiseptics cannot reach 
the enemies. Medicines are ineffective. Exercise does no 
good. Day after day and week after week the germs keep 
on eating and the patient is growing weaker. The best mode 
of natural attack is to stay out in the air day and night; 
not in an airy room; and eat such foods as are described in 
lessons fifty-nine to sixty-three in this course. By such meth¬ 
ods many thousands of cases are fully and permanently cured. 
But sometimes it is too late. 

Then and, even in the beginning, the use of glame acts 
on the germs of the lungs just as the orchard thunderstorm 
acted on the pests that were devouring the valuable trees. 

Glame generates a small thunderstorm in the body. 

It sends its lightning in all directions and through all 
parts by diffusing it. In a thunderstorm out of doors there 
is no sound of thunder when the lightning is diffused, as 
there is no explosion. 

A person who is able to generate at will a flow of glame 
through the body, is able to destroy the germs that cannot 
be reached in any other way. More than this he is able 
to keep all disease out of the body, unless he becomes careless 
and neglectful of his regime. 


237 


SEVENTY-SEVENTH LESSON 


“BEGINNING OF GLAME” 


S ESIRING to come into a perfect association with na¬ 
ture, the habits of many persons who were known 
to possess a high degree of vigor were closely studied. 
There was nothing artificial, nothing to be built up for the 
purpose of making a system of practice, in the methods 
adopted. One of the first cases of analysis may be interest¬ 
ing at this date to show the manner in which the law was 
grasped by the investigators after the truth. 

A woman who had not yet reached the age of twenty- 
four was in failing health. She was slowly dying from 
anaemia or the inability to feed the blood with nutrition to 
keep it alive. This is a common malady to-day, as it always 
has been. She was given the most wholesome food, and was 
induced to spend some of the time out of doors, but she 
took no interest in nature, and had no appetite. Medicines 
and treatments were tried in full variety, but without avail. 
She hated exercise and disliked fads. 

The parents were not able to give her a trip abroad that 
would be of sufficient duration to really result in benefit. 
But they did the next best thing. They planned such a 
trip. They began to plan it in the month of September for 
the coming May, eight months ahead. The young woman 
at once became interested. By pre-arrangement the doctor 
and her father held a conversation in the room adjoining 
hers, where she could hear every word. The father said he 
did not believe his daughter could stand the trip abroad. 
The doctor said that, in such event, it should not be under¬ 
taken until her health was so that she could travel with 
safety and advantage. In this conversation the month and 
the date, and even the course were all talked over, and it 
was settled that she was to take the trip if her health per- 




238 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


mitted. “ But,” said the doctor, “ do not mention these de¬ 
tails to her. Merely tell her that the trip has been talked 
over. Do not promise it to her as a certainty but make 
all preparations for it, as she must go abroad next May 
without fail.” 

The daughter caught the fact that the trip was settled 
upon to a certainty if she was well enough to take it. She 
kept her counsels, but from that moment took a new interest 
in life. She even bought guide books, and refreshed her 
memory of history along the route that had been planned. 

As her father was a member of the early Ralstonites, he 
and some of his associates studied this girl. Little by little 
she overcame a stooping, half-crouching carriage of the 
neck and head that betokened weakness. She became erect. 
Her step grew elastic and firm. Her eyes brightened up. 
Her appetite grew better day by day. It required months to 
bring about these changes, but they were certain and they 
were natural. It is not known where she learned to take 
a deep, gripping breath; but she would go out in the open 
air mornings before breakfast and feast on the glame in the 
new risen day. 

Most important of all the acquisitions was the tense set¬ 
ting of her nerves and the alertness of her muscles. On be¬ 
ing asked why she did these things she said: “I do not 
know. I just love to take hold of nature and appropriate it 
to myself.” 

Of course any person will say that expectancy will fire 
the blood with new life; yet this is glame. That very con¬ 
dition which is the result of expectancy is the thing that 
glame practice develops, as will be shown in the next few 
lessons. 


239 


SEVENTY-EIGHTH LESSON 


“LAWS OF GLAME” 

8 EFORE taking up the practice of glame as an exer¬ 
cise, we wish to state some of the laws of nature that 
are involved in its development. In the first place, 
the statement of Faraday that a drop of fluid contained 
enough electricity to generate a thunderstorm, carries with 
it the universal truth that this power is everywhere. In 
the spring of the year when the return of the sun brings 
new volumes of glame, the air is excited and sensitive with 
electricity, and thunderstorms are frequent. 

The human body is too much in its winter all the year 
round, as far as glame or electricity is concerned. The 
earth has plenty of vitality in the fall and early spring and 
some in the dull days of winter; but not by any means as 
much as in the vital months of spring. Then thunder¬ 
storms and glame come in abundance. There is no place 
on this planet so far away from the orb of light that its rays 
do not come at some times of the year; and, as at the ex¬ 
treme north, it stays for weeks and months, never setting 
while there, as if to make up for its absence. 

But if the earth were to remain a winter all the year 
through, it would be glameless; just as many human beings 
are glameless because they keep their opportunities for de¬ 
veloping vitality closed against it. 

Nature, acting under special design, reduced her activity 
during the winter months, and strikes an average by increas¬ 
ing her activity in the spring and summer; the excess serving 
to excite the out-pouring of vitality. Here is seen one of 
the laws of glame; it is excitement in the resources of life. 

Mechanical or chemical excitement will generate elec¬ 
tricity, and it can come in no other way. In nature the 
spring is an era of excitement; and vitality as well as elec¬ 
tricity are the results. The engine, or the jar that arouses 




240 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


electricity by excitement, will find it anywhere. It is in the 
human body; but glame is in the light and in the open air 
only. These then are our next two laws. 

The pores of the body inhale outdoor air; but do not in¬ 
hale indoor air owing to the counter influence of carbonic 
acid. The pores are small engines. Under the microscope 
they present a wonderful appearance of activity. These 
tiny engines breathe in and breathe out; but they close them¬ 
selves against carbonic acid, which is the most common 
poison in nature. If they were to inhale this poison the 
body would in twenty minutes die of skin asphyxiation. 

You exhale about twenty breaths a minute all charged 
with carbonic acid. Out of doors this gas is diffused and 
lost as fast as it is generated. But indoors some of it will 
remain even with the windows open; and if there is the 
slightest bit of it in the air of the room, the pores of the 
skin will close against it. They are exceedingly delicate 
and sensitive. The least particle of such acid will act on 
them as the faintest fleck of dust may bring on the spasm 
of hay fever. As the pores are present in countless millions, 
you can form an idea how small one of them must be and 
how quickly depressed it can be made by the presence of 
an almost imperceptible quantity of carbonic acid. 

One breath exhaled in a room with the windows all open 
will send out enough of this poison to close all the pores of 
the body. No person can avoid breathing either indoors or 
out. 

Outdoor air then is the glame air. 

To secure this kind of air, you must be bathed in it; not 
be in a room in which such air is passing freely; but where 
it falls down from the uninterrupted sky over your head 
and all around you. In such surroundings you will find 
this wonderful power. 

While the abundance of glame that is in the air out of 
doors will pass into the lungs and through the skin into the 
blood, the use of excitement, as in the spring months of the 


LAWS OF GLAME 


241 


year, will generate a greater quantity of glame from the 
air that passes into the lungs. 

This excitement is known as the glame exercise. 

The purpose of this practice is to separate the electricity 
from the air and from the blood and diffuse it all through 
the body as a new power. 

Having thus outlined the laws of glame we will now pro¬ 
ceed to state them in the order of their rank at this stage of 
the course: 

1. Glame comes from the sun. 

2. Glame associates with the air that is out of doors. 

3. A clean body with the pores of the skin open and ac¬ 
tive will draw glame out of doors into the blood at the skin, 
no matter how heavy the clothing may be; as all electrical 
energy passes readily through such materials. 

4. The least quantity of carbonic acid, as in indoor air, 
will close the pores tightly against the inhalation of glame. 

5. Outdoor air that the sun has shone upon or in which 
such air has mingled, contains glame; but it is not neces¬ 
sary to be in the sun except in the early morning, or in 
winter days; and these times the direct rays of the sun 
are necessary for the development of the highest power of 
glame. 

6. Anything that excites the resources of life separates 
glame from the air and diffuses it throughout the body. 

This last law introduces the glame-exercise, and will form 
the basis of the next lesson. 


242 


SEVENTY-NINTH LESSON 

“RESOURCES OF LIFE” 

OW TO SEPARATE GLAME from the resources 



of life is one of the most interesting of the opera- 


tions of nature. She does it successfully as far as 
electricity is concerned by her ability to excite the resources 
that abound in this earth and around it during the great 
activities of spring and summer. Then growth begins and 
is of wonderful power while it lasts. 

It would seem that hope and expectancy are made for 
the purpose of exciting glame; for in their absence there is 
a woeful lack of vitality. It is human to look forward to 
something in this world; and, when all else fades away in 
the vision of earth, religion builds a greater prospect for 
the world to come. Let these influences disappear from the 
heart of humanity, and nothing will loom up in their places 
but the black abyss of oblivion. 

Life is full of hope and expectation; but few of the plans 
are ever realized. We think out our way for years ahead 
and die in the same old tracks. But the thinking ahead 
carries hope. As this becomes stronger it makes the man¬ 
hood and the womanhood more vital. Expectancy tenses 
the nerves and the muscles when it is eager and full of 
promise of something to be enjoyed. Nature is always sug¬ 
gesting these things and humanity is always grasping them. 

If you wish to see a tensed body tell some child who has 
confidence in you of some pronounced pleasure that is close 
at hand. The eyes will begin to dance with delight, the 
hands will clap, and the body will tense itself. This is 
glame as long as it lasts. It is good for the child, as it is 
a sensation that takes complete possession of the little form 
and fires it with bright light through and through. 

We recall the case of a little boy who had suffered an ac¬ 
cident which necessitated an operation the result of which 




RESOURCES OF LIFE 


243 


was a great loss of vitality. It was important to keep the 
spark of life in his frail body, and the physician suggested 
a gentle reference to some thing that the boy had most 
desired. This was a beautiful rose bower. He had read 
of one in a story book and had asked his father to set one up 
in the garden; but no attention had been paid to the request. 
Now that he was suffering from extreme weakness, al¬ 
though he could hardly give attention to any subject, the 
quiet reference to a rose bower, and the kinds of climbing 
vines that would entwine it, produced such an interest in his 
mind that he longed most eagerly to get well. He was 
fed on the subject in a delicate way to avoid too great ex¬ 
citement; all through the days that followed, the dreary 
watching hours of the nights, and the slow passing of time, 
his face was illumined by the thoughts of the bower, and by 
this means he was saved. 

It was glame. 

Expectancy aroused just that degree of excitement that 
is necessary to separate glame from the resources of life. 
The law is a well known one, and has been recognized for 
thousands of years. Some persons think that cheering up 
a patient will do the work of revival; but this is not true. 
To be cheerful and make an unfortunate person feel the 
effects of good nature, will not supply that eager, keen power 
that develops glame. There must be hope, or expectancy, 
and the prospect must be real and close at hand. 

On exactly the same principle the use of prayer and faith 
have made cures; but they do not always come at will. Prayer 
without faith is not of any value; and the Bible says that 
prayer without “ works ” will fail. 

It is not safe to seek a cure by prayer and faith, unless 
the latter can take absolute possession of the body and mind; 
and also unless 11 works ” have gone before, such a care 
of the body and attention to the laws of health and hygiene; 
for these are the “ works ” that the Bible means in this con¬ 
nection. There must be an under-trend of sound sense and 


244 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


good judgment in the use of any law of the mind or heart. 

It sometimes happens that a firm and violent belief of 
the mind will control the body and its functions to such 
an extent that a cure may be effected. Such an occurrence 
never comes twice to the same person, and is not obtainable 
by the trying. The very energy of the belief produces an 
exhilarating excitement in the individual and glame is sepa¬ 
rated from the resources of life and becomes a powerful 
curative agency. 

This fact and the law behind it have led to the build¬ 
ing up of the mental science systems. We have tested all 
of them, and have employed hundreds of reliable men and 
women to give them a full and complete trial with all the 
faith that is possible in the law under which they proceed. 
But we have seen some marvelous cures effected by the 
power of the mind coming for the first time in a violent 
shock of belief to some sufferer who was given relief by it; 
but we have never yet known the same person to be twice 
benefited in this way. After the shock is over, the new¬ 
ness gone, and there is nothing left with which to surprise 
the mind. 

All mental powers that do not wait on a logical sequence 
of facts must come in an overwhelming tide of be¬ 
lief. It is possible to make some persons feel the mind’s 
power once; most persons are impervious to it; but no per 
son can feel it twice and be made the object of a seeming 
miracle. These facts should be well understood by persons 
who are about to plunge into a new fad. 

It would be useless and aimless for us to deny the won¬ 
derful cures that have come to some persons; but the ratio 
is about one in a million; and no person so helped has been 
able to gain further advantage from the method employed. 
In all new movements where there is evidence of such gain, 
it has come only at the start. In one of the most recent of 
fads, over a hundred persons who were loyal to the new 
methods, admitted that no help had come from them after 


RESOURCES OF LIFE 


245 


the very first, and then only to a comparatively few; but 
the cases that had been helped were so strong that they 
thought there must be a giant power at work in it all. 

The power is merely the process of nature separating the 
life essence from the resources of existence. “ In a drop of 
blood there is enough latent electricity to blow up a house/’ 
as another great authority has said in commenting on the 
assertion of Faraday; and it is no wonder an overwhelming 
excitement is able to wrest from the body a great flood of 
vitality and so effect marvelous changes for the better. 

It all comes down to one law, that of exciting the re¬ 
sources of life through a favorable activity of some power 
that will reach them. 

We have seen persons affected by violent belief, and the 
body was tensed with the same energy that was found in 
expectancy in the young woman or child referred to in pre¬ 
ceding pages. We have seen persons imbued with faith to 
such an extent that it took complete possession of them, and 
their bodies were tensed in the same way. 

Thus the process was the same: hope, expectancy, faith 
and mental influence, all excited the resources of life and 
enough energy came forth to command the body and affect 
its infirmities. 

Now hope and expectancy always maintain their power 
over the body; and so would faith and mind if they could 
be summoned at will; but they seem to come but once and 
then to depart forever in the matter of physical mastery 
over the body. 


246 


EIGHTIETH LESSON 


“GLAME TENSING” 

B WERY PERSON in the full flush of health and vi- 
^ vacity is more or less tensed. This means that the 
*> nerves and muscles and all the flesh are alive and 
alert. The setting of the muscles is not tensing. The ac¬ 
tion of the arm, for instance, in lifting an object is the 
movement of the ordinary electrical fluid from the gan¬ 
glionic cells down the wires or nerves to the bones that 
perform the act. This is the full setting of the physical 
power of the muscles. 

By looking back to lesson seventy-six on the thunder¬ 
storm, it will be noted that the lightning in the orchard did 
not follow a path, but was diffused. This was the glame 
in the storm. Had the fluid followed down a fixed path, 
as it generally does, it would have been merely an example 
of mechanical electricity. These terms are employed here 
only for the purpose of illustration. We wish to show what 
we mean by the difference between mechanical electricity 
and glame in the human body. 

When the arm is called upon to perform some act, as 
work or an exercise, it is made to do so by a flow of me¬ 
chanical electricity that follows down the nerves or wires 
in the arm. The muscles are therefore set for the work. 

But the setting, as such, must be avoided in the practice 
of glame. The electricity must be diffused over the mem¬ 
branes, through the blood, in the lungs, in all the tissue, in 
every organ, in the brain, and through all parts of the body. 
To diffuse Life Electricity, you must not set the muscles. 
It is this one rule that has helped those who have suc¬ 
ceeded, and the absence of which has blocked the way to 
others. If w^e can make you see the difference between 
sending a current of ordinary mechanical electricity down 
the nerve-wires to the muscles, and diffusing the electricity 





GLAME TENSING 


247 


as glame through the body, we shall have opened the way 
for your gerat success. Try it. Open the hand. Shake 
it until it is as limp as a damp rag. Have every finger limp 
and flimsy. 

This is called de-vitalizing. 

Its purpose is to take away all the vitality of the muscles 
and nerves. When you are getting sleep in a chair, your 
body will de-vitalize and your head will roll about. If a 
man is under the influence of liquor he will be partly de¬ 
vitalized at the waist, the neck, the hips and the knees; and 
if, in this condition, he attempts to walk, the width of the 
road is of more consequence to him than the length. 

Try to make your hand as limp as a damp rag. Get all 
the fingers flexible by shaking and working them with the 
other hand until they yield like so much lint. 

Then you are ready to begin the glame-tensing. 

It has two extremes; one the beginning and the other 
the end. The beginning is in the limp condition; the end 
is this side of muscle-setting. That is, you must not use 
power enough to set the muscles. If you do, all glame will 
be shifted into a mere current of muscular electricity, which 
we call mechanical and does not accomplish much in build¬ 
ing glame. 

THE GLAME STICK. 

A man should take a piece of broom handle about six 
inches long and seven-eighths of an inch thick. 

A woman should take a piece of broom handle about five 
inches long, and three-fourths of an inch thick, or even less 
in diameter than that. These are called glame-sticks, and 
have been so called for more than thirty-two years. 

Having secured these bits of wood, you must learn to use 
them by diffusing glame and not by setting the muscles. 
The latter are set when they have grasped the wood in 
such a way as to be able to use it for any purpose. 


248 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


As soon as the muscles are set all electricity runs down the 
nerves. 

To avoid this, you must avoid setting the muscles. Take 
hold of the glame-stick with the de-vitalizing hand, limp 
as a damp rag, and gradually increase the hold from this 
limp condition up to the point where the muscles begin to 
set; then drop the stick. Do not encourage the habit of 
ending each effort with muscle-setting, as soon you will 
not be able to detect the difference between one form of 
practice and the other. 

The greatest power comes from the progress of the act, 
not from its position. It is in progress when it is increas¬ 
ing its tendency to tense; which means that it is actually 
adding power all along the way, but has not reached that 
point where the muscles are set. 

The process of diffusing is carried on when there is an 
increasing tension; but ceases when the progress of tensing 
ceases. If you reach that stage where the tensing cannot 
be increased, then it is muscle-setting. 

These points of distinction are small and delicate, yet 
they determine the difference between glame-practice and 
ordinary muscular practice. 

While there is a constantly increasing growth of energy, 
it is glame; when the energy is fixed as for some effort of 
the muscles, it is mere nervous electricity, and the latter 
does not lead to increase of Life Electricity. It requires 
quite a bit of skill to properly tense the fine nerves that set 
on fire the essence of life and calls it forth from the hidden 
recesses of the body. 


2 49 


EIGHTY-FIRST LESSON 


“POWER OF TENSING” 

g AILURE to generate glame has always been due to 
the inability of the pupil to understand the necessity 
of very fine action. There are all degrees of tens¬ 
ing; beginning with that power which the athlete shows 
when about to make some grand effort, and passing through 
the lesser exhibitions of determination displayed by the men 
who toil or exercise, down to the finer methods of glame- 
practice. 

We have seen the best types of active men and women 
in America and Europe; and have made a study of their 
vitality in various ways. We have seen wrestlers prepar¬ 
ing for their contests and have noted the wonderful but 
quiet power of tensing which they undergo through all stages 
of their struggles; and, where one has come to the trial 
with suddenly set muscles, it is always a foregone conclu¬ 
sion that he will fail because he is not developing his best 
inherent vitality. We have never seen a great or a suc¬ 
cessful man or woman in any physical display of skill, 
whether in the heavier battles, or the lighter work of 
tennis or other games, whose body was not tensed gently 
but firmly. At the end of five years of study and analysis 
of such methods, we found it possible to measure and com¬ 
pare the vital energy of each contestant. Even the woman 
who holds the championship in lawn tennis is marked above 
her ordinary competitors by that fine and yet powerful 
carriage of the body and all its nerves and muscles in tens¬ 
ing. Standing beside her in company with friends in the 
house one evening before her great struggle, it could be 
seen that she had only a slight increase of nervous tension 
over those about her; but, on the next day, just prior to the 
first exercises in the court, the difference was clearly shown 
by her fully tensed body, increased glow of eye, and elastic- 




250 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


ity of action. A stranger might think she was excited, or 
was under the effects of a stimulant; but, as matter of ab¬ 
solute fact, she had neither. Tensing when natural and when 
done along the lines of glame, always acts as a remarkable 
increase of energy, not so much muscular as vital. It is a 
good example of Life Electricity. 

The road horse that is weary is not tensed; the driving 
horse that can jog along at a fair gait, is slightly tensed; 
but the animal that can make a record is so full of the 
power that comes from tensing that no person can mistake 
it. And you will never see a man, woman or animal of 
prowess who is not tensed when the moment of a great trial 
is at hand. 

In oratory, in conversation, and in the mental and emo¬ 
tional struggles of the world, in and out of art, in nature 
and in the gigantic field of human endeavor, the coming on 
of power is always preceded and accompanied by tensing. 
How often we have sat close to some speaker or actor who 
has not yet given evidence of genius. He moves along at 
a slow rate of speed in his unfolding of the latent ability 
that is soon to shine forth. Just as the great thought seizes 
him the pupils of the eyes begin to dilate and to open wide, 
the legs are firmer, the torso shows the coming on of an 
electrical storm, the muscles of the face are nobly poised, 
and little by little the tensing goes on until the fires of 
genius burst forth. 

In all such cases the tensing begins in advance, while 
nothing as yet in the language has awakened the man or the 
audience; but the latter feels that something is coming, and 
it comes. Then the tensing grows to its climax, and after¬ 
wards subsides to some extent; although such orators as 
Henry Ward Beecher, Gough and others of preeminence 
have risen from one range of tension to another until they 
reach the mountain tops, their genius always rising with 
them; for tensing and genius are inseparable. A man like 
Patrick Henry who rose above the competitors of his day as 


POWER OF TENSING 


251 


a lofty peak might rise about the highest mountain tops 
about it, was an exhibition of Life Electricity in extreme 
excess of power. He had not only more than his share, 
but he had the sensitive genius that would call forth vol¬ 
umes of energy where other great men might win smaller 
triumphs with much less of this vitality. Of Patrick Henry 
a well known writer, Lyndon Orr, quotes a pen description 
made by a man who was present during the famous “ Lib¬ 
erty or Death ” speech, and who sat facing him all the 
time of its delivery. His words are as follows: 

“ There was an unearthly fire burning in his eyes. He 
commenced somewhat calmly, but his smothered excite¬ 
ment began more and more to play upon his features and to 
thrill in the tones of his voice. The tendons of his neck 
stood out white and rigid like whip-cords. . . . Finally 

his pale face and glaring eyes became terrible to look upon.” 
When Patrick Henry had finished his speech, “ it seemed 
as if a word from him would have led to any wild explosion 
of violence. Men looked beside themselves.” 

Persons who knew him in private life were struck with 
the sharp contrast between his fiery face while speak¬ 
ing and his total lack of spirit in conversation. He chose 
to arouse himself only when some great public effort called 
for it. Daniel Webster had a dead and dull eye when not 
under the influence of the genius that tensed him; but as 
soon as the tensing began then his eyes would fill with fire 
and glow with light. 

While many cases of genius are so great as to stand al¬ 
most alone in their class, it is true that there is never an 
effort of power, either of thought or feeling, of action or 
determination, that is not inspired by the source of energy 
that expresses itself in tensing. 


252 


EIGHTY-SECOND LESSON 


-FINE TENSING” 


■ EN WHO SPRING suddenly into a show of power 
collapse very soon, whether in the physical world 
or the realm of mental effort. If your antagonist 
is too set and too much alive in his first action, you will 
soon find him weak and ready to resign if you calm your¬ 
self and bring on your own power with a gradual increase. 
The same is true in mental warfare. A young lawyer mak¬ 
ing his first plea to the jury begins with a burst of vehe¬ 
ment eloquence, and ends so dull and empty that he seems 
to be almost in a stupor. We recall the case of a young 
man who afterwards became famous, but who made the 
mistake of not starting calmly and progressing step by step 
into the display of his power, and who failed for that reason. 
On asking a more experienced lawyer what the trouble was, 
the reply came: “You open with all your vitality when 
you ought to hold it back for several minutes.” This is 
the law of repression and it leads to success. 

The glame-exercise seeks first of all to prevent the elec¬ 
tricity from running down the wires of nerves to the mus¬ 
cles. The tensing must be exceedingly fine to accomplish 
this; and it is begun in a de-vitalized state of the nerves 
and muscles in order to avoid actual force. The proper 
way is to grasp the glame-stick so lightly as to seem not 
to hold it with any effort whatever, and then to add the 
least possible degree of energy and so carry on the increase 
by a very faint action of the muscles. 

Nearly all persons who have tried to generate glame have 
succeeded, but some have found it a long and tedious under¬ 
taking, while others have had no difficulty whatever. 

One of the recent cases that involved great delay was 
that of a seemingly vigorous man of considerable strength, 






FINE TENSING 


253 


but who was too energetic. He set his muscles and could 
not control them for fine action. It was found that he was 
very nervous and was suffering from insomnia. He would 
take the glame-stick and would de-vitalize his hand; then 
would grasp it lightly, but would pass instantly into a rapid 
increase of muscular force, with the result that he did not 
have any experience of the presence of glame. He describes 
his final success as follows: 

“ I did not at first read the instructions carefully enough 
to know what was wanted. I thought there must be an in¬ 
crease of strength, and I went on in this way for weeks 
with nothing to show for it. I found that the increase of 
strength that I got consisted in increasing my muscular hold 
on the sick, and this was very short in time. A friend read 
the lessons to me and saw me practice, and then told me 
that the increase must not come after I got a good hold 
on the stick, but it must start from nothing and stay as 
near nothing as possible. It was a pressure as light as a 
feather. I found out what was wanted and went at it with 
better results. I could scatter a faint fire all through my 
hand and feel it go up my arm and in time pass all through 
my body. Then I got good control over myself. I was 
not so nervous. At night I could fall asleep in a few min¬ 
utes, and I was a changed man.” 

A woman who was also quite nervous found it impossible 
to produce glame for several months, and she was adopt¬ 
ing the opposite extreme of not making any increase of pres¬ 
sure. She would take the glame-stick and hold it very 
lightly in her hand, but felt no electricity. She describes 
her case as follows: “I seemed unable to give the slight 
increase of pressing that was required. When I tried to 
increase ever so little, my muscles jumped to a greater 
power than was needed; so I thought I would give none at 
all in the hope that something would make a slight increase 
of the hand. This did not happen, and I was helpless to 
make progress. After some weeks of failing I found that 


254 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


I was able to recognize a difference between no pressing at 
all and the first faint pressure, so delicate that only expe¬ 
rience could know it. I advise persons who do not succeed 
at the start to try it in the same way. They should hold 
the stick till they have a recognition of its silghtest resistance 
to the muscles, and then the distinct thrill will go over the 
body in a way that will not be mistaken.” 

It is in fact the finest kind of tensing. 

Some persons acquire such sensitiveness of nerves and 
muscles that they are able to recognize the very first degree 
of effort, and they are then cognizant of a long and steady 
although delicate increase of tensing from de-vitalization to 
the approach of muscle-setting. They alone find a progres¬ 
sive increase of power possible. 

One of the best methods to adopt is first to be sure the 
hand is de-vitalized, then hold the palm up with the glame- 
stick lying in it, and the fingers half closed. Let the stick 
rest at that part of the hand where the palm joins the 
fingers. Try to close the hand a little but with the gentlest 
motion. Increase this with a delicacy such as would be re¬ 
quired if the stick were some fine film that would be 
crushed if it were subjected to pressure no matter how 
slight. Here is an increase, and at the very beginning of 
tensing. 

If you can do this much you will have won the first vic¬ 
tory. 

The next step is to add the merest trifle of an increase of 
pressure to that already made, but still so light that it 
would hardly be felt if applied to the hand of any human 
being. You can see the fineness of work required. 


255 


EIGHTY-THIRD LESSON 

“EFFECTS OF GLAME” 

@ 0 PERSON will fail to develop this power who 
understands the requirements of the preceding lessons. 
They are stated over and over again in different 
ways so that they may reach all ranks of intelligence. 
Hasty attempts to secure results are sure to result in disas¬ 
ter. Take time enough to know what is wanted, and then 
proceed carefully to perform the exercise in the manner 
stated. 

An in-going breath carries life and the essence of exist¬ 
ence into the body. Such a breath ‘if taken in the vital 
hours of the morning, and in the vital months of the year, 
will add greater results; but glame is universally present 
in some degree and may be summoned even in the house. 
The difference between the glame that comes of itself to the 
body and that which is invited by practice is this: 

If you are out of doors where glame is, you will acquire 
it without practice. If you are out of doors in the vital 
hours of the morning and in the vital months of the year 
you will acquire glame without practice, and in greater 
degree than if you are out of doors at any other time. 

But if you are indoors you will not acquire glame with¬ 
out effort, and for this reason the practice with the glame- 
stick is needed. 

If you choose to use the glame-stick out of doors for the 
purpose of acquiring glame, the results will be greater by 
reason of the fact that you have a double source of supply. 

Assuming that you are beginning the glame-practice in¬ 
doors, it is well to adopt the general instruction of this 
whole course of training as far as you are able, in order 
that your vitality will respond the more readily to the exer¬ 
cise; for where there is very little vitality in a person there 
will be but faint results in securing glame. 





256 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


The first thing to recognize as the product of the exer¬ 
cise is the faint glow of pleasure that spreads through the 
body. It has been described as a feeling of gladness. A 
man who has never been suspected of possessing sentiment 
or emotion writes his experience in the following words: 
“ I found myself feeling unusually bright and glad, as 
though a piece of good news had been brought to me.” 

A man of success in the mercantile world writes: “I 
did not at first have any faith in being able to develop 
glame. I liked the general rules and adopted them to a 
great extent. I learned to breathe deeply and with the 
abdomen. I would practice with the glame-stick in such 
a way as to Cause the slight tension to come when the lungs 
were half full of the inhalation. After three weeks of 
trying I noticed all at once that a very delicate tension 
brought the red blood to my face when there was no appar¬ 
ent cause for it, and a nice feeling would travel all through 
me like a warm glow, attended by an indefinable pleasure. 
I remember to have had a similar feeling years before when 
my first business venture made me a small fortune and 
the first news of it was brought to me.” 

A physician says: “ I had a large practice and came 

home tired. I took up the study of glame in the hope that 
it would bring relief. It was nearly a year before I found 
it, but I made only desultory trials of the exercise. As 
soon as I learned to combine an inhalation with the slight 
tensing of my hand over the glame-stick, I was alive in¬ 
wardly with a faint fire as though I had taken something 
to stimulate me. I could not realize that I had begun to 
develop glame, so I renewed the practice day after day until 
I recognized the true nature of it. It is a diffused elec¬ 
tricity in the system capable of unlimited increase.” 

A teacher says: “ I had very little trouble in generating 

glame, I find it the very essence of life.” 

A woman of wealth and well known standing says: “ I 

thought the talk about glame was another of the many 


EFFECTS OF GLAME 


257 


new things of this age, and I was rather backward about 
making the attempt to develop it. But I needed the course 
of training of which it was a part and thus I was led into 
a study of its principles. They met with my approval as 
being the most sensible ideas I have met with in a long 
time, and I went to work in earnest. My health had been 
very bad and my vitality low. I gained daily through the 
regime. When I could develop glame at will, I tried to 
increase it and I had no trouble in doing that. I am able 
to send a thrill of glowing vitality through my body at 
any moment, and now I have no need of the glame-stick as 
I can tense my body without it.” 

Another woman whose opinions are sought and respected 
wherever she is known says: “ Glame is an electric fire, a 

glow of pleasurable feeling that comes when something hap¬ 
pens that brings intense pleasure. I often connect the 
word tense in glam e-practice with intense when applied to 
jor or pleasure; they seem to be associated.” 

A man who was given up by experts was dying from 
consumption after having made a gallant fight. One day 
as he lay on his couch near the open window, a lady friend 
began to read aloud the principles of glame and the extreme 
delicacy of the practice. It was said of this man that he 
had lost one lung and half of the other one; meaning that 
he had only about one-fourth of his normal lung capacity re¬ 
maining. It is one of the peculiarties of this disease that the 
patients have hope even when near the end. He was com¬ 
pletely absorbed in the idea that glame might help him, 
but he realized his weakness and inability to practice. It 
is a general rule and a good one that a victim of consump¬ 
tion should neither exercise nor take medicine. The use of 
drugs or medicines is to-day regarded as a medical crime 
in the treatment of consumption. Exercise wastes the vital¬ 
ity and helps to break down lung tissue. But the gentle, 
rhythmic breathing with the abdomen relieves the lungs 
and also tends to open up air cells that have never yet been 


258 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


used. This is not an exercise. Every sick person must 
breathe, and it is easier to so breathe that the abdomen 
distends when the air enters, and contracts when the air 
goes out. This is called abdominal breathing. Rest and 
benefit to the vitality follow its adoption. The practice of 
glame is just the opposite of an exercise; for it takes away 
all effort of the muscles. The man found that he could 
easily adopt abdominal breathing and perform the glame 
exercise. He learned the use of the natural foods, especially 
of eggs and milk. From the edge of the grave he worked 
his way back to life, and by a method that was his only 
hope. 

This man is living to-day. 

An editor who was not a Ralstonite and who derived 
much of his income from advertising patent medicines, 
sought to rebuke a well known merchant for advocating 
glame. The merchant replied: “ I owe my life to glame. 

I am sure of it. I will guarantee to you a better condition 
of health if you will let me teach glame to you, and it will 
not cost you a cent.” The editor saw that the merchant 
was very much in earnest and to humor him tried the 
practice of glame. His glame-stick was a piece of broom 
handle six inches long. The editor was hollow-eyed and 
sick in body. He had tried medicines without being helped. 
He soon found himself able to generate glame and wrote to 
us the following statement: “ I am not a biologist and 

do not know what this power is, but it is genuine. I am an 
editor and a man of the everyday world; but glame is a 
reality to me and I am a convert to it. I believe it to be 
the greatest power within the gift of all humanity and 
would advise every man and woman to practice it. It has 
made me a thousand times stronger than I have been for 
years.” 

A woman writes: “ I felt the power of glame the very 

first trial. But before I tried it I studied the directions 
and knew them perfectly. The rush of glame through 


EFFECTS OF GLAME 


259 


my blood was like a flood of faint fire. I wanted to shout 
for joy.” 

A dentist says: “ I enjoy this course of training be¬ 
cause it gives my nerves a steadiness that they never knew 
before. But I am gaining vitality by the practice of glame. 
It is a pleasing excitement that fills me completely.” 

A lawyer writes: “I am alive now. I believe that I 
was nervously dead until I practiced glame. I did not get 
it at first, but it came by and by and I could have jumped 
half a rod it seemed to me from the way I felt.” 

A clerk of court writes: “My duties are arduous and 
wearying. I hailed the course in glame as a welcome doc¬ 
tor. I liked it from the very first attempt to summon the 
faint fire. I get life and energy in great rivers of electricity 
that I can command at will. It is the grandest power of 
the age.” 

A school principal says: “ I have studied what you call 

mechanical electricity. I long ago became satisfied that 
the body is an electrical engine. Napoleon Bonaparte when 
he first saw a voltaic battery said: ‘ Behold the image of 

life! The spinal column is the pile, and it is between the 
positive and the negative poles.’ Physiology more definitely 
accounts for the storage house in the ganglia, and the trans¬ 
mitting lines which are the nerves. If there were no elec¬ 
tricity in the human body there could be no life, and life 
increases as electricity is increased. I am certain that 
glame is the greatest of all methods of setting up this in¬ 
crease. It is bound to do an immense amount of good to 
humanity.” 

Many clergymen have profited by the glame-practice and 
have told their experiences. A few quotations will be given 
here. 

One clergyman says: “ I can at will drive away any 

headache.” 

Another says: “ Glame has made me all over again from 
a wreck to a man of fire and energy. I lift my hat to the 


26 o 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


people who are teaching it to mankind.” Thousands of 
similar sentiments have been expressed. 

Another says: “ Practical religion begins with taking 
care of the body, as it is the temple of life. I have worked 
so hard that I have lost both health and vitality. I have 
been at work on glame for two months, and would have 
given it up but for the advice of a friend of mine who 
tried it and found it a grand help to him. I saw him in 
his last sickness as his friends said; and again I saw him 
in perfect health; and I heard him say that he was rescued 
from the grave by the power of glame. I tried it and found 
nothing in it. He told me to keep on, and I write to say 
that I have just got it now. I have surely found glame. 
It exhilarates me. I am doubly glad; glad to know what 
glame is, and glad because it makes me feel full of hope.” 

Another clergyman says: “I know what glame is. 
Fill a child top full of glee, and it has glame. Give a de¬ 
sponding man a lot of good news, good in every respect with 
nothing denied him, and he will be overjoyous, and that is 
glame. Whatever cheers, whatever thrills, whatever makes 
glad, whatever brings buoyant joy and gladness to the 
heart, that is like glame; and I should not be surprised if 
it were glame.” 

Another says: “Glame can do anything. It has no 
limit. It can be carried into every department of life and 
fill it full of vitality and a new form of existence.” 

Finally we repeat the words of a man who, when he was 
Governor of a great State, was saved from physical and 
nervous wreck by the practice of glame. He said: “I 
deem this new-found power the most important discovery of 
this age. I have found glame in abundance and have been 
made into a new being by it. It is a living reality.” 


26 i 


EIGHTY-FOURTH LESSON 

“EVIDENCES OF GLAME” 

m2 NWARD FEELING will interpret the development 
and progress of this power, but there are so many out- 
ward evidences of the new life that they may be 
summed up in a lesson devoted to them alone. Then both 
the inward and the outward results may be taken as the 
basis of finding the range of percentage of gain made in the 
practice. 

THE PRESENCE OF GLAME 

This is generally felt in so slight a degree at first that 
it is hardly noticeable. 


There is a flutter, as of sudden joy, such as follows good 
news or happy anticipation of any event; a feeling that is 
helpful in giving the mind and body a new life. In order 
to assist the development of this feeling, physicians who 
practice glame recommend that the person who is seeking it 
for the first time, should think of the brightest thought or 
wish while increasing the tensing of the nerves. 


Sooner or later the flutter will be recognized, and the 
event should be carefully noted at the time, for it is the 
most important epoch in one’s life when the body is able 
to draw glame from the vast fund of the universe. It is a 
new birth. 


Do not practice with those who take no interest in it, as 
you will very likely be more or less disturbed at a time 
when absolute stillness and calmness are required. 

HOW TO ESTIMATE THE PERCENTAGE OF GLAME. 

If you experience no buoyancy of feeling, zero is the rat¬ 
ing. 







262 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


If there is a very faint, almost indefinable buoyancy, mark 
your rating one per cent. 

If a very faint feeling of exuberance or buoyancy is felt, 
but exceedingly fine and delicate, mark it five per cent. 

If the buoyancy is felt clearly but is not strong, mark it 
ten per cent. 

When you reach a state of exhilaration, the percentage 
is twenty-five. 

An increase beyond this rating will depend on the fine 
nervous temperament of the person experimenting. Some 
reach one hundred per cent, in a few weeks after the first 
recognition of the new power. This percentage has been 
attained by many persons of both sexes. The test is in the 
magnetic fires of the nervous system which fill the body but 
do not cause an uncomfortable feeling of heat. In the dark, 
if there is no light whatever in the room, the eyeballs will 
show a full, strong light. This may be easily seen by an¬ 
other person who is present in the dark room, or the person 
may see the light reflected in a mirror. 

A person of quick brain perception or fine nervous or¬ 
ganization will not only perform the exercise correctly from 
the beginning, but will recognize the entrance of glame into 
the body. 

We request each and every person who recognizes the 
first coming of glame to write to us at once, stating what 
percentage is estimated. You can make the estimate as 
your good judgment dictates. We also would like to have 
statements from time to time containing descriptions of the 
manner in which glame affects the body. 

FACTS CONCERNING GLAME. 

i. It quickens the pulse. 


2 . It gives an intense brightness to the eyes. 


3 . It gives a glow of health to the face. 




EVIDENCES OF GLAME 263 

4. It enlarges the pupils of the eyes, which is a sign of 
vital power. 


5. It imparts great vigor to the heart, for it is the only 
stimulant that does not consume what it feeds upon. The 
weakest hearts acquire new life. 


6. It causes the eyes to flash fire. The brain within is 
also lighted and acquires an almost supernatural power of 
sight into facts and conditions not otherwise knowable. 
Persistent practice proves this. 


7. It increases the discs in the blood. The difference 
between poor blood and rich blood is in the relative number 
of discs present. A drop of blood examined under the mi¬ 
croscope before the trial begins and after glame has been 
drawn into the body, will show a remarkable increase of 
the discs. The same test can be made just before and 
just after each period of practice, when there have been sev- 
ral days of non-practice, and a decided increase of discs will 
be seen, showing that glame practice is the direct cause of 
the bettered condition of the blood. 


8. In a mass of reports from people who have developed 
glame, we gather one almost uniform conclusion, and that 
is that the first approach of glame is like the feeling that 
something is to happen that is greatly pleasing. Mind, 
heart and body are all buoyed up, and there is no reaction. 
It becomes a habit in time. 


9. In thousands of reports coming from those who were 
very slow at first in developing glame, we gather the con¬ 
clusion that many experience a sudden and irresistible de¬ 
sire to shout for joy! The throat swells, the heart leaps, 
and the eyes dilate! 







264 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


10. A person who has glame in the system can commu¬ 
nicate it to another by a touch of the hand. Diseases have 
been cured in this way. The quantity that is stored in one 
body need not have any limit. To impart it to another 
need not exhaust the supply in the individual giving it. 

11. Some persons start their practice by clumsily press¬ 
ing the glame-stick. They feel no sensation and so end all 
their efforts. It pays to try it carefully, and to keep on ex¬ 
perimenting until the sensation is felt; after which there 
will be a constant increase of the power to instantly draw 
glame. 

12. The full explanation of the subject has now just 
been given to the world in a manner never before at¬ 
tempted, and the gate of opportunity is swinging on its 
hinges. A different life is open to you. Despite the fact 
that glame does not loudly knock at any door on its first 
approach, it is in reality the greatest power in human life. 
Proof of its existence is offered to every person without 
money and without price. It is free to the world. 

13. Many marvelous cures have been effected by the 
development of glame. There are cases where doctors have 
failed, where medicines have failed, where specialists have 
failed, that have yielded to the power of glame. It is so 
free and so simple in its method of acquisition that it may 
not attract the flitting mind that expects something elab¬ 
orate and costly. But it is a real fact, nevertheless, and no 
argument is needed to prove it, for a fair test will make it 
appear to every man and woman who seeks it. 

14. Glame quickens all the faculties; not only the con¬ 
scious and ordinary faculties, but the deeper powers of the 
brain, and the keener discernment of the sub-conscious mind. 
It builds gray matter in all the ganglia, including the brain. 






EVIDENCES OF GLAME 


265 


It stimulates thought, insight, accurate judgment and intui¬ 
tive knowledge. 


15. Glame is an attracting power. It sets up affinities 
between the life of its possessor and the things desired by 
that life. It also makes the mind master over matter. To 
any man or woman who will persistently pursue the prac¬ 
tice of glame until a power of one hundred per cent value 
has been attained, an unfolding of a new life will appear as 
proof of the fact that the vital-principle of existence is the 
key to the universe. 



266 


EIGHTY-FIFTH LESSON 


“HIGHERGLAME” 


B LAME has been taught for more than thirty years 
in the private books of the Ralstonites. It was 
long ago recognized as the essence of life. If a 
person will sit down and think carefully of what the es¬ 
sence of life contains, he will stand face to face with the 
most wonderful theme of all time. The chemist knews the 
elements that compose the drop of matter which makes the 
starting cell of the egg. All such beginnings are alike. 
The human being, the horse, the elephant, the insect, the 
dog, the tree, the rose, all start with a first-cell, and in 
every instance the first-cell is the same. The chemical 
parts also are the same, and the plasmic food that is to cause 
growth is the same. There is no reason why the first-cell 
should not make a dog, a horse, or a spider, as well as a 
man. 

Ambitious chemists of great ambition have analyzed the 
first-cell and found its contents; and they have attempted 
to become creators of beings by setting such first-cell to 
growing under the influence of light, warmth, fresh air and 
right food. They have succeeded in accomplishing every¬ 
thing except life itself. Their perfect work remains as 
ready for the essence of existence as the body of the man 
taken from the water after such essence has gone out. The 
perfect form is there; and food, sun and air are at hand; 
but something is lacking, and that is life itself. No chem¬ 
ist can play the part of creator, and no human mind is 
strong enough to make even the humblest organism throb 
with the vital spark. 

Whether a man could possess such an excess of glame as 
to be able to put life into a person recently dead, is a 
question that we do not care to discuss. This much is 




HIGHER GLAME 


267 


known, that thousands are dead and buried every year who 
are barely dead. Their bodies are kept long enough to 
insure against being buried alive; but the process of em¬ 
balming cuts off all chance of the latter calamity. When 
once the embalmer begins his work, death will be effectual. 

A case has come to our knowledge that was so important 
that we found it necessary to study it with great interest 
and exactness. A young woman not over twenty years of 
age was drowned. The body was secured, and the funeral 
director wished to proceed to embalm it. The parents ob¬ 
jected, and the body was kept for four days in the hope that 
some signs of life might be found. The moment came when 
the casket was to be lowered, and a last look was taken at 
the face. A red flush was seen, the casket was raised, the 
woman taken out, and came to life. She is living to-day. 
Had the embalmer been allowed to proceed she would have 
been dead beyond all doubt the very second he began his 
work. 

We do not mean to advocate the disuse of the custom of 
embalming. It is necessary in most cases. To friends and 
relatives who are anxious about their dead, it tells them 
that death is Certain when embalming begins. But many 
persons are embalmed who are dead and yet not beyond 
hope of revival. A physician who was recently asked how 
many persons were buried annually who were not dead, he 
replied: “Not one, in my opinion.” Doctors say this 
freely, and suppose it is a true statement. But they add, 
“ Embalming takes away all doubt of the fact of death.” 

Where disease has eaten away the texture of an organ, 
there is no hope of reviving a person. But drowning, acute 
indigestion, heart failure and other causes of death that 
leave the body’s organic structure complete and ready to 
carry on the functions of life, may some day be met with a 
remedy that will bring back the essence of existence. Sci¬ 
ence has tried various methods; the use of mechanical elec¬ 
tricity has been before the public for many years, and of 


268 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


late salt has been applied. But the thing needed is life it¬ 
self and that is glame. 

Death in the cases referred to is only the temporary ab¬ 
sence of the essence of life, or glame; it has been Called 
back in many instances, and in most cases it has slowly 
drifted away beyond recall when it might have re-entered 
the body. The rule is this: “ If a person has died of some 
attack that might, under favoring conditions, have been con¬ 
quered, then life is still at hand waiting to come again into 
the body.” There happen every year thousands of cases 
where the physicians say that recovery seems possible and 
that if the patients in fact get past the crisis they ought to 
get well and live for many years. In the death of a boy 
of sixteen years of age, three doctors pronounced him out 
of danger, yet he died; and his panicstricken parents were 
cut off of all hope by the embalming process. Still in the 
present stage of science, there was less than one chance in a 
million of any human power being able to revive the boy. 

Another case is at hand that has been found to be true 
in every detail.: A girl of seventeen who had always been 
frail died of fright which affected the heart. Her mother 
could not bear to part with her, and threw her body around 
that of her dead child and would not let any one separate 
them. The mother was a woman of strong vitality. She 
clung to the body for three hours after doctors had said 
‘it was dead beyond recall; and yet life came back. There 
were no prayers, no faith, nothing but the passing of a great 
vitality into a body that had been deprived of it. The 
mother, on being asked to what she ascribed revival of the 
girl, said: “I was too much in earnest, too wrought up, 
to think of praying. I believe in prayer, and have thanked 
God thousands of times since. But during those three hours 
which to me seems but a few minutes, I made up my mind 
that my girl was not dead but simply that life had gone 
out and could be brought back again. I stirred up within 
myself all the energy that I could summon, and somehow it 


HIGHER GLAME 269 

seemed to me as if I felt it going out of my body into that 
of my child.” 

This woman had not practiced glame, and had not then 
heard of it. She used no art, no knowledge, no science, no 
new thing to bring life into the body of the young woman; 
all she did was to throw her vitality into the perfect but 
empty shell that she clasped in her arms, and to do this 
she of her own volition and invention “ stirred up the energy 
within her.” Since then she has investigated glame and be¬ 
lieves that she possessed it in a strong degree, but that she 
came by it naturally. 

It is true that many persons possess glame naturally. 

Whether it is brought about by practice, or by habits, 
does not matter; it becomes natural after once being at¬ 
tained. Accidental habits produce no better results than 
acquired habits; and the latter are induced by study and 
practice. 

In order to reach that degree of power where glame may 
be so abundant as to be given out to others, the individual 
who aspires to that high office must follow closely to the dic¬ 
tates of nature. We have often heard of persons who claim 
to possess wonderful gifts in this line and we have never 
failed to find them out and investigate their merits. In a 
few instances we have been convinced that some men and 
women have been so charged with glame that they could 
impart power of vitality to others who were weak. But 
such persons have led lives that conduced to the accummula- 
tion of vitality. Others may lead still more vital lives and 
become a blessing to the world. 

But it would require self-denial and unusual care that at 
first would be tedious. No person is willing to suffer the 
good things of this age to pass by untouched for the sake of 
getting glame enough to impart vitality to other bodies. 
The goal does not seem to warrant the effort. Nor could 
it be claimed that one human being could put life into the 
body of another after death. That it has been done, and 


270 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


is possibly being done in rare instances to-day, cannot be de¬ 
nied; but to teach such an art would be ridiculous. A 
superabundance of vitality may, in one case in a hundred 
millions, call back life to the dead body; but the secret of 
the miracle is probably that a faint flicker of life still re¬ 
mained on which to build the revival. Life has been known 
to stay in a body supposed to be dead; and, after a few days, 
has grown from a spark to the full flame of being. 

We have for many years carried on extensive corre¬ 
spondence with people everywhere, and have received much 
information on this subject; and have a total of fifty-three 
claims in recent years of dead bodies being revived forty- 
eight or more hours after death; only a few of which we 
have sufficiently verified. In nearly all cases the process 
seemed to be due to the throwing of the live, vital body 
over or around that of the dead, and thus sending in the es¬ 
sence of life, probably to revive the faintly flickering spark 
that remained and that would have been snuffed out by 
the embalmer. 

But there are thousands of well known cases where the 
vitality of the living body has been used successfully to hold 
life in the dying body; and in these cases death would have 
come with a certainty had it not been for such vitality about 
the patient. Such a use of a highly charged body is worth 
acquiring. We would not advise any person to claim that 
an ordinary human being could call back the dead; but 
there are two claims that are not unreasonable if the con¬ 
ditions are sound: 

1. A person who has apparently died, but in whose body 
some life still flickers, may be revived by the excessive vi¬ 
tality of another person; although such instances would be 
exceedingly rare. 

2. A person whose vitality is so low as to be unable to 
sustain life during the crisis of sickness, may be kept alive 
by the excessive vitality of another person close at hand. 
Such instances are not rare, but are common to-day, com- 


HIGHER GLAME 


271 


paratively speaking. Such an avocation is both reasonable 
and honorable. 

It would seem from the foregoing premises that it is the 
duty of all persons of intelligence to build up glame in the 
body and to hold it for the double purpose of maintaining 
a long life on earth, and of helping others who may be com¬ 
pelled to pass into the shadows and need the strong arm of 
another to save them. 

Probably no cause to-day is operating so persistently 
against the vitality of humanity as the use of foods under 
modern systems of cooking and filth. While some persons 
are living longer, more are dying prematurely; and there 
has never been an age in which so large a proportion of 
both sexes were out of health. In an assemblage of one 
thousand of the healtiest appearing men and women that 
you can gather together in any part of the land, you will 
not find ten who do not have some form of stomach trouble 
or faulty digestion. Those who claim to be perfectly well, 
do not tell the truth in one case in a hundred, although they 
do not realize that they have any trouble until it takes an 
acute form. The healthy, vigorous men who have died of 
acute indigestion, have almost every one of them seemed to 
be in good health; but that malady, now so common, is 
only the climax of a bad digestive system. 

Vitality is dropping lower and lower every year in this 
country, and wherever civilized cooking is going on. The 
pure products of earth, God-given and blessed, are turned 
by the art of pastry and filagree science into masses of to¬ 
tally indigestible stuff that tickle the palate, and kill the 
vitality. During the first six months of the present year, 
we have collected together the total list of eight hundred and 
fifteen men and women, mostly men however, who have died 
suddenly from acute indigestion in this land; men who were 
in good health and attending to their duties a few hours 
before the attack; men who would, most of them, have de¬ 
nied that they had any stomach troubles. 


272 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


The cause of the sudden deaths was the growing weak¬ 
ness of the digestive organs brought about by modern cook¬ 
ing which men are compelled to take without protest, for 
women who cook have but two ideals, lightness and palata- 
bility. “ A pleased palate is the stomach’s worst enemy,” 
is a true saying. Tickling the palate, in both foods and 
drinks, has led to nearly all the crimes and maladies of the 
world. Lightness in cookery can be secured by the use of 
alum, and is so secured to-day in nearly everything; yet 
alum will reduce the vitality of the digestive organs to that 
stage where one attack will result in fatal consequence, 
known as acute indigestion. This is slaying more strong 
men in the present age than all the wars of the world. 
And there is no remedy. You cannot change the present 
methods of cooking. No man and no set of men can change 
them. They are here to stay for some generations at least. 
Alum-cookery will not be driven out of existence. 

Right here is the one great barrier against the acquisi¬ 
tion of higher glame or any glame at all. 

But if there can be found here and there a man or woman 
who will pursue the natural and simple plan of living which 
is embraced in the steps to graduation which will end this 
course, then the new power will be found and made useful 
in the highest degree. 


273 


EIGHTY-SIXTH LESSON 

“THE VITALIZED BODY’ 

g ROM EXERCISES to habits is a natural drift. 
In this busy era most persons object to exercising. 
If they are of sedentary habits, it is obnoxious to 
them; and if they are of active habits they do not need much 
exercise. But life is nothing except what the accumula¬ 
tion of habits makes it. There is not a moment of living 
that is anything but the habits of the past expressing them¬ 
selves, unless some new experiences are brought into it; and 
these make new habits if they are worthy of adoption. 

The use of the glame-stick results in the development 
of glame without the aid of outdoor nature. It generates 
out of doors in combination with nature a far greater abun¬ 
dance of glame than can be secured without the practice. 
But it is an exercise. 

It possesses a quality that no other exercise has, and that 
is the adaptability to a habit after it has been well prac¬ 
ticed. 

Out of more than eleven thousand reports sent from those 
who have learned to generate glame by using the stick, 
nearly nine thousand have stated that they could get along 
without the stick; or, in other wo'rds, they could develop 
glame by merely tensing the hands and arms. It is well for 
them to find this out for themselves; as, if pupils try to find 
glame without the stick, they will not know its real nature 
and value. 

It is absolutely necessary to begin with the glame-stick 
and to persist in its use until glame comes at will. Then 
the stick may be laid aside and will never be needed again. 

If it is certain that glame has been developed by the exer¬ 
cise described in the preceding lessons, the next step is to 
make the same effort by the hand alone. It will not require 
many trials to send a current of glame through the arm 




274 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


and body; and then all that remains is to know how to turn 
this practice into a habit. 

While it may be done in the house, and almost every¬ 
where, the use of the outdoor air is much better. But as 
the object now is to set up a regular habit, let us see under 
what circumstances glame may be developed without the 
aid of the glame-stick: 

1. Let us suppose you are in the house and have a visitor 
who does not interest you in an extraordinary manner; 
what is to hinder you from gently tensing one hand, or 
both, or one arm, or both arms, or the body? The visitor 
will not see you. The more time you devote to the habit, 
the greater will be your vitality. 

2. You are at the dining-room table waiting to be served; 
what is to prevent you from tensing the hand, or arm, or 
body, and thereby developing glame? No one can notice 
it. It will take no time; as a few seconds generally suffice; 
but the blood will flow more freely through the system, 
the nerves will be more alive, and the stomach will digest 
the food more readily. Do you know that glame brings 
to the body the same good feeling that comes from hearing 
a piece of good news? Do you know that a professor of 
Harvard University has an instrument that makes use of 
the X-ray so as to secure results from observations of the 
process of digestion. This is referred to in the following 
words by a well known writer in a recent magazine of 
the best authority on such subjects: 

“If all parents could have the privilege of looking over 
the shoulder of Professor Walter B. Cannon, of Harvard 
University Medical School, when he is observing the shad¬ 
ows of indigestion on the fluorescent screen of his X-ray 
apparatus and note the effect of mental shock on diges¬ 
tive processes, they would never again scold, or worry, or 
even argue, either during a meal-time or afterwards while 
digestion should be going on in the family. The X-ray 
picture shown to Dr. Cannon and the revelations of Pro- 


THE VITALIZED BODY 


275 


fessor Pawlow are conclusive evidence that mental states 
are even more important than mechanical thoroughness of 
preparation in promoting digestion. Attention to mechan¬ 
ical thoroughness diverts the mind from scrapping and 
other depressing things, and at the same time caters to en¬ 
joyment, which is really a strong stimulant to digestion, 
thereby serving a double purpose.” 

If the shadows of indigestion can be seen to follow bad 
news, and the whiteness of digestion can be seen to follow 
good news, and if the mechanical thoroughness which is 
another name for careful chewing of food will divert the 
mind and do the stomach good in addition to ingesting the 
food itself, then the practice of glame while at the table is 
sure to serve a triple purpose. It brings vitality into the body. 
It also brings exactly the same feeling that attends the 
hearing of good news. And it diverts the mind during 
the periods of practice. 

It takes no time. 

There are many little waits at the table when time seems 
to drag. Use them for developing glame without the 
aid of the stick.’ Nobody will see you. It will not inter¬ 
fere w'ith anything that you are doing or saying, and it 
will never be known unless you tell it. 

Experiments have been made in the use of glame com¬ 
bined with ingestion. Certain articles of food that al¬ 
ways cause indigestion were eaten slowly and all the taste 
was chewed out of them before they were swallowed, 
which is called ingestion; and this was done while the body 
was tensed enough to keep a current of glame passing 
through it all the time. The result was that the food did 
not cause indigestion, nor did it seem to fail as food, for 
it imparted nutrition, when otherwise it would have re¬ 
duced the vitality. 


276 


EIGHTY-SEVENTH LESSON 


‘ GENERAL POWER’’ 


advancing in the course we come now to 
other habits that have a great value in the health of 
the individual. By way of review it must be re¬ 
membered that glame was sought naturally by association 
with nature in the vital hours of the day and the vital 
months of the year. This involved outdoor life. Then 
we came to practice with the glame-stick for the purpose of 
generating glame wherever a person might be. As soon as 
this art was mastered, the next step was to lay aside the 
stick and depend solely on the ability to bring glame by 
merely tensing. 

The hands have thus far been used for the purposes of 
practice. Their nerves are most sensitive. But now we 
have other ways of generating this power, following the 
order that has been already employed. It would be use¬ 
less to start at this point, for failure would be sure to re¬ 
sult. The pupil who seeks to jump to the goal by omitting 
the intermediate steps will fail. 

After you have acquired the power to bring glame at 
will and without delay, you may then command it in any 
and all parts of the body. The following is the order to 
be adopted in this lesson: 

Sit in a chair and direct the mind to the right hand. 
Tense the fingers until glame is generated; then de-vitalize 
them. 

Now tense the wrist until glame is felt there; then de¬ 
vitalize it. 

Tense the fore arm as far up as the elbow and as far 
down as the wrist, until glame is felt along that zone; then 
de-vitalize it. 

Tense the upper part of the arm from the elbow to 
the shoulder until glame is felt; then de-vitalize it. 




GENERAL POWER 


277 


Tense the shoulder until glame is felt; then de-vitalize 
it. 

Repeat each step with the left arm. 

Repeat each step with both arms at the same time. 

Now throw the tension into the front upper chest. 

Then throw the tension into the back upper chest. 

Tense the lower front chest. 

Tense the lower back chest. 

Tense the stomach. This exercise is very difficult, but 
it is exceedingly valuable. Indigestion is stagnation of the 
contents of the stomach, accompanied by ferment which 
produces carbonic acid. Glame in the stomach overcomes 
the stagnation, and starts the flow of the gastric juices. 

The next step is to tense the right hip until glame is 
generated; then de-vitalize it. The latter should follow 
all tensing, as continued tensing weakens the system owing 
to the lack of return of the vitality to the batteries. Con¬ 
scious de-vitalization sends them back. 

Now tense the left hip, and proceed as just stated. 

Tense the right thigh until glame is generated; then de¬ 
vitalize it. 

Tense the left thigh likewise. 

Stand and tense the right knee while there is no weight 
on it. 

After de-vitalizing the knee put the weight on it and 
tense it. 

Stand and tense the left knee with no weight on it. 

De-vitalize it and tense it with the weight on it. 

Tense the right calf with no weight on it. 

Place the weight on the right leg and tense the right 
calf. 

Tense the left calf with no weight on it. 

Place the weight on the left leg and tense the left calf. 

Tense the right ankle with no weight on it. 

Place the weight on the right ankle and tense it. 

Tense the right foot with no weight on it. 


278 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


Put the weight on the right foot and then tense it. 

Tense the left foot with no weight on it. 

Place the weight on the left foot and then tense it. 

** Persons who may doubt whether there is any virtue in 
glame will be pleased at the following experiments which 
any one may easily try: Ten men were walking in a 
large hall, and had all learned to tense the parts of the 
body separately. They were told to make the circuit of 
the hall at the same steady, even gait, and not to increase 
or decrease their speed. When they had traversed the 
space ten times, the order came to tense both feet. While 
appearing to be walking at the same rate of speed, the 
time-pieces showed that they in fact increased their rate 
nearly twenty per cent. They were unconscious of this 
fact. 

The same experiment has been made many times with 
similar results. 

A company of soldiers were taught to tense their feet and 
legs; and on doing so it was found that they could march 
sixteen per cent faster with fifty per cent less weariness. 

Men and women of sedentary habits who were instructed 
to take long walks daily, were exhausted by so doing until 
they learned to tense the legs and feet; and after that they ex¬ 
perienced almost no weariness at all. We were walking 
with some pupils in the country, and they were unable to 
proceed on account of being exhausted; but, without stop¬ 
ping, they were told to use the glame tensing in the feet 
and legs, and all did so with success. Every one of them 
said they were rested even while walking. They had pre¬ 
viously learned how to tense for glame. 

The benefit from this power must be preceded by knowl¬ 
edge of how to use it. Once having learned how to get 
glame by tensing, there will never be a time that it can¬ 
not be brought to life. It has all sorts of useful traits. It 
is the best stock in trade that any human being can obtain; 
and for this reason it should be sought by all persons. 


GENERAL POWER 


279 


It brings a fire into the nervous system that is clearly 
felt, and that seems to carry life along with it. It is a stim¬ 
ulus at all times. If you are ill you can help the physician 
by the use of glame, although he may know nothing of it* 
If it will give a tired person the power to walk four times 
as far as could be done without it, there must be some¬ 
thing in it that will assist in the cure of disease. 

Men who have been almost exhausted in manual work 
and who have had a knowledge of glame, have been enabled 
to proceed by using this energy to revive their tired muscles 
and nerves. After all it is the fire in the nerves and 
throughout all the body that saves weariness. That glame 
is at times of tremendous power has been proved by uses 
that have been made of it. The strength of a man is not 
what he can lift under ordinary circumstances, nor what 
he can do even when he tries with all his might. There is 
an almost unlimited energy that is incapable of being meas¬ 
ured, but of which some knowledge can be secured when 
we see the frail man sick and weak in the last stages of 
some nervous disease, being held by the combined strength 
of six men of great muscular strength. 

Whence comes this power? 

Take the cat that cannot lift a ten-pound weight, yet 
when under stress of excitement is able to resist the grasp 
of two hundred pounds; whence comes for the first time, 
un-tried before, the wonderful energy? 

A woman whose weight was sixty-five pounds who could 
not move her arms because of being bed-ridden, was at¬ 
tacked by two masked burglars in the evening, and she 
fought them like a tigress. Instead of dying from heart 
failure, she began to mend and got well. Whence came 
that enormous strength that she exerted under great ner¬ 
vous stress? 

No one can doubt that somewhere in the human body 
there is enough electricity to blow up a house. 


28 o 


EIGHTY-EIGHTH LESSON 


“VITAL FIRE’’ 

S FTER new habits have been formed and the power 
to generate glame has been acquired in all the ways 
suggested in the preceding lessons, then the attempt 
should be made to charge the body in a general manner. 
This brings the course to its most natural climax. It also 
connects the gift of nature with nature itself. The first 
meeting of glame was in the vital hours and in the vital 
months of the year; all out of doors. Then came the 
glame-stick exercise indoors; and this was followed by 
the attempts to form habits without resorting to exercises. 
But there is a larger scope than all. 

If you go out into the bracing air on some clear morn¬ 
ing, you will note the difference between the pure atmos¬ 
phere and the close, stuffy rooms of the house. Your 
lungs will hunger and thirst for the vitality that is all about 
you, and you will take a full, deep breath which will be 
like clear, cold water to the parched lips. The very act 
of inhaling such air will almost thrill you. 

How many thousands of weak men and women would 
appreciate such an opportunity of feeding the body with 
vitality! We have seen some of them at mountain hotels 
before breakfast working away in the morning air to drink 
in its benefits, and when they have tensed the body slightly 
they have taught themselves the way to generate glame. 
Their eyes have brightened wonderfully and the glow of 
health has found their cheeks while their appetites have 
come to them like long lost strangers from a dim past. 

There is glame in vitalized air; but there is some vitality 
in all air. If you have the better kind, it is to your ad¬ 
vantage to make use of it. But under any. and all circum¬ 
stances it is wise to train the body to tense itself on the 
glame basis. Mere tensing will not do. The glame basis 





VITAL FIRE 


281 


is that delicate passing from the state of de-vitalization to 
the first faint pressure of the muscles. 

The whole body should now be trained to receive the 
fire of glame. This is done by the gentlest kind of tens¬ 
ing of every part of the body at once. It is the most 
natural kind because the feelings that produce glame af¬ 
fect all the body. Good news, the knowledge of triumph, 
great satisfaction, genuine pleasure and the like are agen¬ 
cies that turn up the mind, the heart and the flesh, and in¬ 
crease the vitality. Lives have been saved by these simple 
means. 

In a certain city of less than a hundred thousand in¬ 
habitants is a lawyer that seems anything but a type of 
physical strength; yet he walks, works, talks and lives all 
the time in a tensed body. We asked him if he realized 
the fact, and he did not know anything about it; but he 
examined the question of glame and declared that he had 
used it as a natural habit all the years he had been at the 
bar. He had a tense walk that was easy and graceful, and 
as light as air, yet really full of power. His voice was 
tense, and at all times interesting. When we first met him 
he was fifty years old, and that was thirty years ago. He 
is alive to-day and well; and is yet trying court cases. 

We know of a woman who was frail thirty years ago, 
but who adopted the general habit of glame as then taught, 
who is still alive and well, although close to eighty. She 
adopted the tense walk, and worked with tensed hands, 
arms and body. She has many times said that she kept a 
living fire in her system, and this buoyed her up against all 
circumstances. 

A man fatigued from watching at the bedside of a sick 
child started out on his morning duties. He had learned 
to charge his whole body with glame, and on this morning 
took advantage of his previous acquisition. By efforts that 
were painful to behold he forced the tensing through the 
body, and soon was filled with glame. All weariness left 


282 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


him, and he was as fresh as ever. This leads to the con¬ 
clusion that weariness is possibly nothing but lack of vi¬ 
tality. As glame is vital fire it supplants weariness and 
the body is no longer tired. 

While those who are ill or weak may gain great help 
from glame, those who are well should increase their power 
to the utmost limit. The fire soon becomes real. You 
have looked into the eyes of the cat or animal that has 
spirit. The fine horse, the fine dog, and any of the milder 
beasts will show fire in proportion to their spirit. Such 
fire denotes the presence of energy beyond the muscular 
reckoning. The number of pounds that a horse can pull 
are known; but what can be said of the nervous horse that, 
with fire in his eye, takes the bits in his teeth, and runs 
away? He displays fifty times the power that he can ex¬ 
ert in pulling. It is due to his excited nervous electricity 
that surpasses all reckoning. 

So men and women are able to develop the same power 
as glame to an almost unlimited degree. 

You can be tense in all circumstances; tense in standing, 
tense in walking, tense in sitting, tense in voice, tense in 
every act of the body and its parts, until at last you will 
have grown into a degree of vital fire that will surprise you. 
It is worth the trying and costs nothing. It takes no time, 
as it is as easy to be tense as to be half de-vitalized as you 
and all your acquaintances are all day long. 

You can develop vital fire in this way, and it will soon 
become a fixed and natural habit. 


283 


EIGHTY-NINTH LESSON 


“MAGNETIC CURRENTS” 

8 HIS COURSE of training might have stopped with 
the last lesson, and we do not know that we are 
warranted in continuing it into an approach to mag¬ 
netic studies. But whether we are justified or not, we 
wish to say that during the past thirty years thousands of 
experiments have been made with acquired glame and the 
most startling results have been secured; some of them be¬ 
longing to the study of personal magnetism, which is a 
higher course than this; and one in particular of them be¬ 
ing in the direct line of the present course of training. 

This will now claim our brief attention. 

It is called magnetic currents. Those who retain mem¬ 
ory of the lessons that precede will recall that the thunder¬ 
storm is cited as an example of the manner in which light¬ 
ning from the sky can be diffused without running in chan¬ 
nels. Diffused lightning never kills although it may stun 
and shock severely. It never occurs with an explosion and 
is therefore free from the sound of thunder. It is diffused 
when the rain is in the form of a cloudburst, scattering its 
volume in all directions. When lightning leaps from the 
cloud as a bolt it will spring to some point of connection 
and so find its way to the earth. This is called the strik¬ 
ing of lightning. But when it is diffused, it kills only 
smaller life, such as the insects that we mentioned. 

Glame is the diffusion of Life Electricity in the body. 
It kills all germs that carry disease there. If you can de¬ 
velop glame more and more each day, you can soon make 
yourself perfectly immune from disease by reason of the 
fact that such electricity destroys bacterial existence there. 
No germ can live in its presence. 

Magnetic currents can be directed at will wherever there 
is weakness due to such invasion. If you believe the lungs 




284 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


possess the germs of tuberculosis, then send magnetic cur¬ 
rents to that zone and persist in it, with the aid of natural 
food and outdoor air, until you are certain that no germs 
remain. Examinations after death reveal the fact that 
nearly every person has had such germs in the lungs at 
one or more periods during life. There are evidences that 
the lungs have been partly devoured and then healed. Phy¬ 
sicians state that not more than two persons in a hundred 
have been more free from the germs of tuberculosis at all 
times. Danger lurks all about you. Your safety rests 
in your vitality. 

It is possible to direct magnetic currents into the brain; 
and we know that many a headache has been cured by the 
fire that comes from glame in that way. Indigestion is 
greatly relieved by magnetic currents sent to the stomach. 

Many persons have practiced on the eyes, firing them by 
glame until the glow is seen there. This takes some time, 
but there is no doubt that every man and woman may ac¬ 
complish this. At the present time we are inaugurating 
experiments for helping the eyes. A great specialist in the 
diseases of the eyes has examined glame and has come to the 
conclusion that it has the greatest hope of any curative 
method for the eyes. He is reporting at this time much 
success in his work. We invite all persons to join in these 
efforts. The use of magnetic currents in and through the 
eyes cannot do harm, and is sure to result in great good. 

These currents will follow the will power, and it is amaz¬ 
ing to note the readiness with which they are controlled. 
They are known as the inward currents. Our attention 
will be called to another line of influence known as the 
outward currents, which will be discussed in the next lesson. 


285 


NINETIETH LESSON 


“OUTWARD CURRENTS” 

S S WAS STATED in the opening of the preceding 
lesson, the consideration of magnetic currents is extra 
work, and is not properly connected with this study; 
but as they are the direct outgrowth of the development of 
higher glame, it is not amiss to mention some of the uses 
to which this power may be put. The last lesson dwelt 
on the inward magnetic currents. There are also outward 
Currents that are worthy of attention, and it is our purpose 
to ask you to make a simple experiment to see how much 
may be gained in case this new found power is to be em¬ 
ployed in its greater realms. 

There is some connection between glame and the mag¬ 
netic needle, as a person who can develop glame to ex¬ 
cess can cause the needle to waver and some persons have 
actually diverted it wholly from its northerly course. 

In the publication of the great French Academy, the 
most illustrious society in existence devoted to the arts and 
sciences, is an article by Humboldt, on page 576 (Compte 
Rendu, 1849), in which he uses the following language: 
“ M. Du Bois is the skillful experimenter who succeeded 
in making the compass-needle deviate by the will of man; 
that is to say, by that electrical current which produces 
muscular tension. The deviation was effected at great dis¬ 
tances and ceased when he did not keep his muscles tense.” 

There is not only some relation between glame and 
the magnetic needle, but also between that power and the 
north towards which the needle points mysteriously. 

A very effective exercise has been in use for many years 
and will be repeated here as one of the logical results of 
the development of a high degree of glame. 

In some room of your house, if the same does not face 
to a point of the compass, have a mark which will indicate 




286 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


the direction of the north. Stand and face squarely to 
the north. Advance your weight on your right foot, and 
poise the chest over it so that the center of the body will 
rest over the center of support which should be the middle 
part of the ball of the right foot. 

Do not lean forward. 

Your weight will seem to carry the body to an advanced 
position but with the body held as directed. 

Breathe gently and deeply without effort or straining. 
As the air is almost filling the lungs extend the right hand 
upward to a height slightly above the elevation of the head, 
but as far to the front as possible. Now tense , tense, 
TENSE; increasing the faint pressure of the muscles un¬ 
til the mind and body are afire with glame. 

At this exact instant speak some thought briefly in a low, 
firm tone of voice, beginning with the words, “ I WILL.” 
If there is anything that you are resolved to accomplish, 
or resolved to gain, or do, suit the words to the thought, 
as: “I WILL develop an enormous amount of glame,” 
or: “I WILL master this course in Life Electricity,” or: 
“ I WILL deny myself the pleasures of eating for the bet¬ 
tering of my health,” or: “I WILL improve my mind 
and body every day I live.” There is no limit to the wishes 
and resolves of an ambitious soul. 

It is a principle of magnetism that whatever you make up 
your mind to accomplish, you will achieve; and this rule of 
life has been many times proved true. While the above 
exercise is not a part of the study of personal magnetism, it 
is close to the first stages of it; but it is introduced here to 
furnish proof of the great control that the mind may exert 
over the body and the operations of the day. 


THE TEN 

STEPS TO GRADUATION 

IN 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 










































































































































































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NINETY-FIRST LESSON 


289 


FIRST STEP TO GRADUATION 


“THE OUTLINES’’ 

S EFORE you proceed further in this course it is neces¬ 
sary that you understand the system and general 
structure of the work which has been set forth. To 
end the study now without further aid would be to leave 
you adrift. A chart or map is necessary to every mariner, 
and also to every voyager in the ocean of life. Such a chart 
may at first present only grand divisions, and these are as 
follows here: 


GRAND DIVISIONS. 

1. The Negative Division, or the Enemies; embracing 
the first thirty-four lessons. 

2. The Affirmative Division, or the Friends; embracing 
lessons from thirty-five to sixty-five. 

3. The Division of Glame Habits; or the Direct Culti¬ 
vation of Life Electricity; embracing lessons from sixty- 

'six to ninety. 

4. Steps to Graduation; embracing lessons from ninety- 
one to one hundred. 

CHART OF ENEMIES. 

There are six classes of enemies that stand in the way of 
every attainment in life, and especially in the development 
of vitality: 

1. Enemies that originate in the Mind. 

2. Enemies that arise in the Nervous System. 

3. Enemies that assail the Stomach. 

4. Enemies that injure the Lungs. 

5. Enemies of the Membranes. 

6. Enemies in the form of Habits. 





290 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


These enemies are introduced in the eighth lesson and 
are fully discussed in many lessons that follow thereafter; 
each having an important bearing on the course of training. 

CHART OF FRIENDS. 

There are seven classes of friends that are helpful to 
the development of health, vitality and Life Electricity: 

1. Natural Life. 

2. Associated Life. 

3. Vital Periods. 

4. Qualities. 

5. Distillation. 

6. Normal Foods. 

7. Glame Habits. 

These are outlined in the thirty-sixth lesson. 

CHART OF GLAME HABITS. 

There are seven classes of habits that of themselves tend 
directly to the development of Life Electricity: 

1. Life Range. 

2. Vital Power. 

3. Brain Balance. 

4. Nerve Terminals. 

5. Glame Exercise. 

6. Vitalized Body. 

7. Magnetic Currents. 

These are outlined in the sixty-sixth lesson. 

The First Step to Graduation requires that you become 
fully acquainted with the foregoing outlines. Some pupils 
will commit them to memory, while others will not care to 
make the mental effort. 

There is what is called a half-memorizing plan that is 
often indulged in by persons who are busy. They make 
themselves familiar with the facts and then, instead of re¬ 
peating these offhand from the memory, they write down the 
heads or subjects, and lay them away for a day or more; 


THE OUTLINES 


291 


then take up the paper on which they are written and read 
the heads aloud, explaining their meaning and the ideas 
they introduce, also aloud. Every time they are unable 
to explain them fully, they make a note for further study, 
and so continue until they are masters of the subjects. 

Can you tell why one part of this course is called nega¬ 
tive, and another part is called affirmative? 

What is meant by friends and enemies of the human 
body and its vitality? Can the mind and the nervous sys¬ 
tem exert an ill influence over the health? How does the 
abused stomach lessen the vitality? 

Are you familiar with the nature of the three charts and 
the subdivisions contained in them? 

When you have reviewed this course often enough to 
have mastered its general plan and leading ideas, then you 
may regard yourself a graduate at the first step. The fol¬ 
lowing certificate should be filled out by you in ink on this 
page, and kept for future reference as it will have a bear¬ 
ing on your life. 

FIRST STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have studied and reviewed the out¬ 
lines of this course of training as described in this lesson, 
and I understand the meaning of each and every part as 
set forth herein. I have signed my name in ink on this 
page on the date below given. 

(Name). 

(Date).. 




292 


NINETY-SECOND LESSON 


SECOND STEP TO GRADUATION 


“MIND AND NERVES” 


>^s^ICTORY OVER the influence of the mind and the 
nerves is an essential part in every great life. Turn 
IQJKK to lesson nine and re-read all that it teaches. Do 
you understand what is meant by sluggishness of the mental 
and nervous faculties? To what extent are you a slave 
to that defect? If you are disposed to be inactive to what 
extent can you wake up the muscles and engage in the mul¬ 
titude of physical duties that surround you? 

Then the mind, the nerves and even the muscles may be 
irritable, or over-active without results of value. Mistakes, 
accidents and blunders are common faults; and they lessen 
the value of the body to the spirit that dwells in it. Such 
errors grow and increase all the time if left to take care of 
themselves. But nervousness leads to such an exhaustion 
of the vitality that collapse and disease will surely follow. 
They may be overcome. In this age of rush and heart 
failure, of over-taxed nerves and neurasthenia ending in 
paresis, the time has come to call a halt, and there is no 
treatment that can effect a cure except this course of train¬ 
ing. Everything else has failed because the method has 
not gone to the root of the evil. The thirteenth lesson is 
worth almost as much as life itself if it causes the nervous 
person to stop and turn about in his habits. 

The mind is what experience makes it. 

It grows strong through strength of use, and weak 
through weak mental habits. It is fed by the same sources 
if vitality as the heart, the lungs, the stomach and the 
nerves. It keeps pace with them, controls them and is in 
turn made by them, for they are always piling up expe- 





MIND AND NERVES 


293 


rience for the mind to act upon; and this organ is what 
it does. 

Irritability is of a rank growth, once let it get a hold on 
the mind, or the muscles, or the nerves. It does not like 
to let go. It is the channel or relief for the weakling, the 
failure, the derelict, and the reckless. Oaths, slamming, 
banging, throwing things, fretting, fussing and nervous 
actions are the one common routine life of these persons 
who “ let themselves go ” because they feel better by so 
doing. But they throw away their minds and their nerves. 
From the day when a man or woman “ lets go ” the end of 
usefulness in high degree is in sight. 

Here are enemies for you to conquer. 

Read and study and often review lessons nine, ten, 
eleven, twelve and thirteen, until you feel able to say that 
you have begun to Conquer your enemies in this respect. It 
is time now for you to do this, as you have too long been 
slaves to the bad habits referred to in those lessons. When 
some decisive mastery has been attained, then you may re¬ 
gard yourself a graduate of the second step. The follow¬ 
ing certificate should be signed by you on the page of this 
book where you may refer to it in the future: 

SECOND STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have studied and reviewed lessons, 
nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen of this course of train¬ 
ing, and that I have been able to master the faults of mind, 
nerves and muscles therein referred to. I have signed my 
name in ink on this page on the date given below. 

(Name). 

(Date). 





294 


NINETY-THIRD LESSON 


THIRD STEP TO GRADUATION 


“MASTERY OF THE STOMACH” 


B |ERE WE HAVE the greatest array of enemies 
known to human life; those that line up against the 
£> health of the stomach. A man may face cannon in 
battle, or grope his way in the dark amid the crime-infested 
districts of London, but he would lack the courage to deny 
his palate the pleasure of some hurtful but delightful thing 
to eat or drink. Women who possess true courage and 
bravery in many grave crises are slaves to their palate. 
The reason for this bondage is the fact that all life once 
began in a stomach and nothing else; from which feelers 
led out to secure food, and channels were differentiated to 
pass on the debris, giving the arms, legs and alimentary 
canal, to which all else is subservient. 

The stomach makes or un-makes every person. 

Its outer guard is the palate, and that servant has been 
bribed for ages by subtleties in food and drink, and will so 
continue until some other means of sustenance is devised. 

But there are men and women who have enough elec¬ 
tricity in their will powers to deny the palate; in other 
words they refuse to allow their outer guard to be bribed. 
Nice things to eat and drink are kept out of their lives. 
They get their enjoyment, not in bribery, but in freedom 
from secret inward attacks of the enemy. Some shallow 
minds say: “There is but one life to live, and we might 
as well enjoy it as much as we can, so we will eat and drink 
and be merry.” They are merry while they eat and drink, 
but not afterwards. Their fun lasts only the brief seconds 
while the food and drink tickles the palate; then Father 
Time slaps the doctor and the undertaker on the back and 





MASTERY OF THE STOMACH 


295 


say: “ Be patient, fellows, you will get him soon enough.” 
And they all three laugh, while the nice food and the drink, 
having got past the stage that affords pleasure, are tearing 
up great nerves in the stomach and sending their secret 
emissaries of disease through every organ of the body. It 
is a few minutes of fun, and hours of misery. 

In all ages the stomach has been most assailed of all the 
functions of life. It is the gateway to all the parts of the 
body. It is the source of blood, brain, nerves and organic 
structure. What it takes in makes man what he is. You 
cannot be something different from what you have eaten. 

By reference to lesson fifteen it will be seen that there 
are five classes of enemies to the stomach as follows: 

1. Non-food elements. 

2. Chemical poisons, 

3. Carbonic acid. 

4. Mineral matter. 

5. Flesh poisons. 

These are elaborated in the lessons that follow afterward. 

The first of the enemies, non-food elements, are present 
in the many kinds of foods and drinks that are abundant 
to-day, and they bring foreign matter into the system which 
has to be fought out by loss of vitality, and thereby pre¬ 
vents the accumulation of Life Electricity. You like to¬ 
matoes, but what use has the body of oxalic acid? It is good 
to clean clothes with, and it removes iron rust from them; 
but in the blood it is the basis of uric acid which produces 
rheumatism. It is a non-food element. The beers and 
liquors of the old days were generally free from extraneous 
matter; but it is known that more than 123 poisonous chem¬ 
icals are added to their making to-day, and the kidneys and 
blood are seriously injured by their use. 

The seventeenth lesson contains some of the most com¬ 
mon of chemical poisons in use at this time. The two 
most fertile sources outside the drinks, are preservatives in 
everything that enters the mouth, and alum in baking 


296 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


powder and self-raising goods. Legislatures and Congress 
have attempted to penalize these crimes, but politicians 
lobby all law-making bodies and prosecuting officers, and 
very little progress is being made for wholesome foods. The 
men who have got rich by slaying countless thousands of 
people with food adulterations and preservatives, never re¬ 
gard themselves as murderers; but some, on their death 
beds, have confessed to the awful charge; while there is 
doubtless a day of judgment coming for all of them in an¬ 
other life. 

The eighteenth and nineteenth lessons are worthy of close 
study, as they point out the dangers that are growing to¬ 
day beyond all endurance. 

Mineral matter is not a poison as a rule, but is a source 
of aging and the cause of decrepitude in old age. It clogs 
the brain and makes it childish. It clogs the senses and 
and makes them weak and puny. It fills the inner sur¬ 
faces of veins, arteries and blood-vessels, and brings on 
the feebleness that is called old age. It can be avoided. 
There is no reason why people should not learn to live 
young and die young in their nineties. The twentieth les¬ 
son deals with this subject. 

In the next two lessons, the twenty-first and twenty- 
second, we see the dangers of meat-eating. An animal is 
an active organism. Whatever part of that organism has 
been engaged in its activities should not enter the human 
stomach as food. It has been the seat of metabolism, or 
the breakdown and decay of the life in which it dwelt; and 
it is full of the poisons that attend metabolism. 

That is a hard word for the lay mind, and perhaps we 
ought not to use it in the present work; but it is the best 
word for expressing the facts behind it. Read lesson 
twenty-one and see you understand what is there said about 
it. 

The twenty-second lesson is regarded as one of the most 
important treatises ever issued. It should be read many 


MASTERY OF THE STOMACH 


297 


times and thoroughly understood. In it is presented a fair 
array of the facts for and against the use of meats in the 
diet. The reasoning is impartial and conclusive. It is the 
summing up of a third of a century of experience. 

Can you eat metabolism? Can you take into your body 
the urea and breakdown of animal life? 

But if you become alive to the importance of abstaining 
from meat, you must not run to some silly fad, as that will 
not do. You are supposed to take no advice from other 
sources, but to cling to the teachings of this book. Avoid 
fads. 

Avoid the nut fad. 

Avoid the fasting fad. 

Avoid the vegetable fad. 

Avoid the raw food fad. 

Get a substitute for meats by using the normal foods de¬ 
scribed in the Code of Eating which is included in this 
course. 

As far as the present side of the subject is concerned 
you are now ready to graduate from this step if you are 
converted to the facts as stated in the lessons referred to. 
The following certificate may be signed by you in ink: 

THIRD STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have studied and reviewed lessons 
fourteen to twenty-two inclusive, and that I well under¬ 
stand their teachings and believe them to present a true 
statement of the facts as applied to human life. I have 
signed my name in ink on this page and on the date below 
given. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




298 


NINETY-FOURTH LESSON 


FOURTH STEP TO GRADUATION 


MASTERY OF THE LUNGS’’ 


^HILE the stomach makes the body, its life enters 
in at the lungs. A new set of lessonsss, running 
from the twenty-third to the twenty-nineth inclu¬ 
sive, now require attention. You weed the garden before 
you seek to make it productive of valuable things. So you 
must weed out the enemies of the lungs in advance of the 
good work that comes later on. These foes are stated in 
lesson twenty-three as follows: 

1. Carbon poisons. 

2. Closed air. 

3. Dust. 

4. Smoke. 

5. Gasoline. 

These are the direct and common enemies. No matter 
how much you try to build up healthy lungs, it will never 
be possible as long as you harbor these enemies. 

Lesson twenty-four describes the carbon poisons that come 
from inhaling the air that has been used and that has be¬ 
come dead. It is in the room where you eat, and in the 
room where you sleep, and in the room where you work. 
It is never out of doors. But you can obtain some relief 
from the danger by admitting fresh air under safe circum¬ 
stances. 

It is not safe to sit in a draft. 

It is not safe to sit behind a car window that is open, 
unless all the car windows are open at the same time. In 
a room where the doors and windows are all open, and the 
direct blowing of the wind is avoided, there is not much 
danger of a draft. In a car where every window is open, 








MASTERY OF THE LUNGS 


299 

or where the temperature out of doors is as warm as that 
of the car, or warmer, then there is no danger. But when 
the air that is admitted blows directly back to some person 
in the seat behind the window, and is of a lower tempera¬ 
ture, the danger is great. Lists of deaths from pneumonia 
and from paralysis have been published from time to time, 
until the man or woman who does not know that he or she 
may be guilty of taking human life by throwing open a car 
window on a cool day so that the car blows upon some 
person seated in next seat behind, is not sufficiently intelli¬ 
gent to be allowed to travel alone. The person who opens 
the window does not get the direct force and chill of the 
air. It passes backward. Two cases recently have been 
added to one reported not long ago of paralysis following 
this practice; and in another case a woman who was heated 
from hurrying threw open a car window and put her head 
out a few inches, and was dead from paralysis in less than 
an hour, while a little girl in the seat behind her died ten 
days after from pneumonia. 

Fresh air is not always safe air. 

Very few persons suffer danger by being surrounded in 
the open with fresh air; it is the contrast of temperature and 
conditions that makes the draft a fatal enemy. 

City dust has been discussed in lesson twenty-six, while 
a greater foe, indoor dust, is described in lesson twenty- 
seven. The dust that arises in the country roads is not one 
per cent as harmful as that which is found in the city. In 
the country there is less grinding of the humus and manures 
into the road, as rains and air act on them more readily than 
in the city. In the latter, the dust is walked on and driven 
over a hundred times as much, and is reduced to an in¬ 
visible powder so fine that it can enter at the tightest doors 
and windows. 

It also contains a far more deadly humus and by exami¬ 
nation shows a greater abundance of germs of disease. 
There is no city dust that does not carry the germs of tu- 


300 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


berculosis, the most fatal of all enemies. Such dust is much 
filthier than that of the country, owning to the conditions 
explained in lessons twenty-six and twenty-seven. 

That conditions and not mere theories confront us is 
shown by the awakening of medical men and boards of 
health to the danger of dust in the city. The use of wet 
antiseptic applications to public school rooms, instead of 
the old-fashioned sweeping and dusting or wiping with 
rags, is spreading in every wide awake community. 

Dust indoors, whether in the city or country, is a deadly 
foe. It is carried about on every disturbance of the air, 
and settles on all food and dishes. The only way to fight 
it is not to have carpets or drapery that must be swept or 
shaken indoors. Rugs that may be Carried to the outdoor 
air and cleaned will be insisted on by every intelligent per¬ 
son in the near future. Wet antiseptic applications to the 
floors and exposed parts, will also be used. Dry rags are 
as bad as dusters in scattering the dust. The grind of 
shoes and the wear and tear of life in the house will al¬ 
ways produce a humus dust laden with disease. 

It is now getting to be an axiom among medical men that 
disease cannot be caught out of doors. It is pretty nearly 
true. The more the question is examined, the stronger 
seems the statement. 

But people who wish to go out of doors are barred from 
doing so in the cities, owning to the dust of the streets and 
the endless cloud of gasoline that occupies all the good 
air. We have reports from all the large cities, and most 
of the smaller ones in the United States, in which it is stated 
that seventy per cent of the outdoor air is vitiated by gaso¬ 
line odors and gasoline smoke. It seems strange that so won¬ 
derful an invention as the automobile must make use of so in¬ 
jurious a commodity as gasoline. 

It is true that all smoke deadens the vitality of the 
lungs. To ride in a smoking car will lower one’s vitality 
many degrees. To remain in a house where there is smok- 


MASTERY OF THE LUNGS 


301 


ing produces the same loss of Life Electricity. Air is bad 
enough in the house without adding to its weakening con¬ 
dition by allowing any smoke to remain there. The stove 
that is guilty of this offense should be corrected. When 
some one insists on smoking in the room where you are, go 
out. There is a time and place for everything, and no 
sensible person thinks that the rooms of the house are suited 
to smoking. Outdoors is large enough to carry off the in¬ 
jurious effects. Statistics show that people who live in 
smoke from day to day are much more liable to lung dis¬ 
eases than those who keep out of it. 

As to the use of any fluid by automobiles that will make 
smoke, the remedy is to create a sentiment that will com¬ 
pel them to secure electricity as the motor power. Auto¬ 
mobiles are engines that can travel faster than the average 
railroad trains do travel in fact; and the latter are con¬ 
fined to fixed road-beds where the public may avoid them. 
But automobiles use all the streets and highways, day and 
night, in the light and in the dark, to the grave danger of 
the great masses of people who seek outdoor life for the 
means of feeding the lungs with a purer air than is found 
indoors. 


FOURTH STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state I have carefully studied lessons twenty- 
three to thirty-three and fully understand the facts stated, 
and ivill to the best of my ability shape my habits of life 
to the teachings therein. I have signed my name in ink on 
this page and on the date below given. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




302 


NINETY-FIFTH LESSON 


FIFTH STEP TO GRADUATION 


“NATURAL LIFE” 


0 N THE FRIENDLY SIDE there are many attrac¬ 
tive things that now command our attention. The 
_first is natural life, which means that kind of liv¬ 
ing that invites a better acquaintance with nature, and the 
uses of the vitalizing powers that await us at every hand. 
It was intended that humanity should live out of doors 
much of the time. Work that is performed indoors ought 
to be done out in the air during those periods when it is 
possible to so perform it. Rest, sitting, reclining, reading, 
study, writing, cooking, teaching, and most of the arts and 
trades may be given attention in the air on occasions when 
the weather permits instead of being always confined to 
rooms of buildings and homes. 

The groves of Athens invited men and women who 
wished to be taught the wisdom of ancient Greece. It 
would be better for the pupils of the present era to spend 
all available time out of doors; and it would cause very 
little inconvenience to so arrange the plan of instruction. 

There is no reason why cooking should not be done out 
of the house when the weather permits. This is not possi¬ 
ble in cities, but cities are not ideal places for living. Peo¬ 
ple who cling to city life are making the most serious mis¬ 
takes. It is not convenient for many to go to the country; 
but where there is a will there is a way, and it will not 
be long before there will be a general exodus out of the 
great centers of population. Wealthy families are every 
year joining the ranks of country-dwellers; and hundreds 
of millionaires have turned their backs on the winter periods 
in the cities. 





NATURAL LIFE 


303 


In the State of New Jersey alone, we have learned of 
more than three hundred wealthy men who have given up 
their city homes for good and who live with their families 
the year round in their country homes. In the country 
around the city of New York in Long Island, Connecticut 
and New York State, there must be many other hundreds 
who do likewise; for their country homes dot the land in 
all directions. Once they had city residences. Now they 
do not care even for the winter months in the cities. Some 
of them are our pupils and they declare that they find coun¬ 
try life the ideal plan of living; nor would anything tempt 
them to return to the false standards that prevail in the 
cities. 

Set your mind and your heart on country life some day. 

Keep thinking of it as it may be lived by you, not as it 
is lived by the careless and ignorant farmer who does not 
appreciate the blessings of nature, nor even know anything 
about them except as they are blindly thrust upon him. 
Think of country life as it is being lived to-day in magnifi¬ 
cent mansiofis and sweet cottages where nature is sought 
and her kind offices are accepted. 

In the country you can get the sun when it is most 
needed, and avoid its excess when it is too abundant; neither 
of which you can do in the cities. In the country you can 
get pure air, fresh air, clean air, wholesome air; not one 
of which is possible in the city. In the country you can 
associate with nature, grow as she grows, inhale the vitality 
that is imparted to all living things, become a part of the 
glorious exuberance of existence, and enjoy yourself while 
doing things useful; not one of which is possible in the city. 

In the country you can found a new “ old homestead ” 
for yourself and yours, where there can be respect for family 
ties, love for home life, the return of those who go out 
to make their way in the world, a place for holiday re¬ 
unions and for the final round-up of the children and grand¬ 
children, who come to say the last farewell to the old folks 


3°4 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


at home. There can be no “ old homestead ” in the city. 
The most that is hoped for is a flat or a tenement that is 
shoddily built and that crumbles away year by year until it 
is no longer fit for renting. 

The old home is dearer to the true heart than old 
glory; and both should awaken the loving enthusiasm of 
every honorable citizen. 

Let the tide turn back again. 

Country habits have been vile, there is no doubt. Among 
farmers to-day they are filthy and nasty, in a large propor¬ 
tion of cases. But that is due to the beasts that live in the 
country. The hog that takes up his abode in a palace is 
not made a gentleman by the palace; he degrades his en¬ 
vironments. But there are some exceptions to this disre¬ 
gard of the blessings of the country; and we can point with 
pride to many families who practice cleanliness and whole¬ 
someness in their habits; and they elevate the standard of 
refinement there. 

But it is for you and others of better tastes to take the 
higher ideals with you, as thousands of others have done 
and are doing to-day. The new exodus is wending its 
course from the cities out into the free and pure air, and 
carrying with it the noble teachings of purity, cleanliness 
and gentle qualities. 

Study this great subject and give it deep thought, and 
sign the certificate below when you can do so in full sin¬ 
cerity. 

FIFTH STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have carefully read and studied 
lessons thirty-seven to forty-eight , each not less than five 
times , and I am very much interested in the teachings of 
those lessons. I will take every advantage possible to spend 
time out of doors more than I now do , in the hope that 
some day I may find closer associations with the bounties 
of nature. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




305 


NINETY-SIXTH LESSON 


SIXTH STEP TO GRADUATION 


“MASTERY OF QUALITIES” 

F YOU REVIEW the forty-ninth lesson you will 



find a list of seven qualities, all of which play some 


part in a healthy and vital life. They indicate the 
temple in which the spirit dwells. They tend to power on 
the one hand and keep the human being from groveling in 
bestial habits on the other. These seven qualities are as 
follows: 

1. Calmness. 

2. Repression. 

3. Brightness. 

4. Attractiveness. 

5. Cleanliness. 

6. Activities. 

7. Spirit of Play. 

How many of these qualities do you already possess? 
You will at once say that you are cleanly. But do you go 
to bed every night with a body wholly cleansed of its urea 
that has been coming to the skin all day long? Would you 
be willing to be found ill or hurt in an accident and your 
under-clothing shown to the public? When you can an¬ 
swer these two questions in the affirmative you will doubt¬ 
less be cleanly in the other habits of teeth, hair, breath, gen¬ 
eral dress and so on. 

You will of course claim to possess the spirit of play. 
But is it the kind of play that is described in lesson fifty- 
six? No. 


Have you any of the activities that are discussed in lesson 
fifty-five ? 

But you think you are attractive. Read lesson fifty- 
three. 





3°6 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


You are not bright all the time. You may show some 
such nature when friends call, but it does not last. It 
does not fit you unless it is permanent. Read lesson fifty- 
two. 

The qualities of calmness and repression are natural with 
great men and women, or else they could not achieve great¬ 
ness. These are wonderful helps in the development of 
Life Electricity. Study many times the two lessons, fifty 
and fifty-one, on these subjects. 

Do not mistake sluggishness or laziness for calmness. 
These two defects are blotches in the life of those who are 
guilty of them, while calmness is the highest virtue in all 
the world if it is attended with power and usefulness. In 
fact if we were to be asked by you what one lesson in all 
this course we deemed most valuable to the man or woman 
who did not have time for more than one of them, we would 
reply lesson fifty. Read it and you will see why it is the 
greatest in importance of all this course. The calm indi¬ 
vidual is the natural leader of the world. 

The requirements for graduation at this step are some¬ 
what different from those that have preceded, for they come 
closer to the genuine power of the pupil. 

SIXTH STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have studied lessons forty-nine to 
fifty-six, both included, and that I have in fact adopted all 
the seven qualities therein described. I will, above all 
others, maintain calmness at all times, especially when most 
difficult to do so. I have signed my name in ink on this 
page at the time stated below. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




307 


NINETY-SEVENTH LESSON 


SEVENTH STEP TO GRADUATION 


“CODE OF EATING” 


S UMANITY does not realize, and does not want to 
realize that it is a slave to its stomach. There is 
no habit so fixed and so persistent as that of putting 
something into the stomach. It began with the first min¬ 
utes of life and will continue until close to death. As the 
stomach has no way of reaching the outer world it is pro¬ 
vided with an advance guard that has about as much sense 
as the nerves of the nose in determining what is good for 
the digestive organ. A rose, or a violet, or a carnation fur¬ 
nishes delicious fragrance; so much so that people from for¬ 
eign lands who have never seen them before, desire to eat 
them at once. 

The palate is an organ in itself. 

It is made active by the flow of mucus from the blood. 
The mucus can be no purer than the blood from which it is 
drawn. The blood, under analysis, shows gross impurities; 
and, as these are all found in the mucus on the palate, the 
result is a false standard of taste. 

If you indulge in foods and drinks at night that are not 
makers of pure blood, you will have a bad taste in the 
mouth, for the poisoned mucus spreads to all parts of the 
tongue, teeth, palate and throat. It oozes out of the glands 
and membranes, and through the palate. Now what kind 
of an advance guard is this that tastes so offensive? What 
kind of judgment can it exercise over the questions of good 
and bad food? 

If the blood is clogged by too much food, or wrong diet, 
or improper cooking of good food, the palate will have an 
abnormal craving for things that are hurtful. Here is the 






308 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


true basis of the use of stimulants. Pure blood, made by 
good foods, such as are included in the Code of Eating in 
lesson sixty-five, will not send to the palate a relish for 
stimulants or bad foods such as are excluded under lesson 
sixty-four. This fact has been proved, not once, but thou¬ 
sands of times in the past thirty years. When you will 
inaugurate an era of practice under the two lessons, sixty- 
four and sixty-five, then you will solve the question of alco¬ 
holism, and the long train of crimes that attend it. 

As long as the blood remains impure, the palate will set 
up a false relish and demand foods that are still bound to 
keep the blood impure. It is the old doctrine of like at¬ 
tracting like. One great branch of the medical fraternity 
has for generations cured disease by making use of this law: 
like cures like. The thing to be cured is something abnor¬ 
mal, or it would not need curing; and the thing that cures 
it is abnormal also. Bad blood makes a bad relish, and the 
palate craves the same class of food and drinks that have 
made the blood bad, as shown in lesson sixty-four. 

Then this law is seen to work out in the human system 
as it does in the land on the farm. Natural manure is 
humus. Artificial fertilizers are chemical. If you stop us¬ 
ing the natural manures on the land, and put on the chem¬ 
ical fertilizers in their place, the land will afterwards crave 
the chemical, and will demand more and more of them every 
year until all the life of the soil has been eaten up. These 
chemical fertilizers have come into use in the last generation 
or two; since which time the fruits and flowers have been 
attacked by scores of pests never before known. To-day it 
is said that all horticulture must be conducted by the timely 
use of sprays to kill diseases and pests, while your father 
can remember the time when such things were not known. 

The only way to get the land back again to its natural 
fertility is by sowing peas or clover, and plowing them under 
for a few years, and then make use of humus manures; for 
here we find the natural and normal foods for the land. 


CODE OF EATING 


309 


On the same principle, when good foods are cooked into 
a chemical compound foreign to the needs of the body, such 
as may be found described in lesson sixty-four; or when 
chemicals are added as is done to-day in the form of pre¬ 
servatives for everything that will not keep readily, and 
in baking powder, which is a chemical poison, to make foods 
light, then the stomach and the digestive apparatus will re¬ 
spond only to a false relish and the demands of an abnormal 
palate. To make this danger greater, physicians of intelli¬ 
gence in most matters, forgetting the law of like and like, 
tell their patients to eat what they crave; and so the medical 
profession is a growing one. Tell the man who is inclined 
to use liquors freely, to drink what he craves, and you have 
exactly the same degree of sense in the advice. 

Heroism of the noblest kind is now required of you. 
Are you equal to it? The certificate is a strong one and is 
not to be filled out until you can do so in full sincerity. 

SEVENTH STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have read and studied carefully les¬ 
sons seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twen¬ 
ty-two and sixty-four, and I am determined to avoid in 
my life the dangers which they teach. I will also, as far 
as it is possible from time to time, adopt the Code of Eating 
described in lesson sixty-five. I realize that it will require 
of me the severest tests of heroism and bravery to carry 
these great doctrines into effect. I will not take up any 
food fads or be led into the use of a foolish diet in this 
great warfare. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




3io 


NINETY- EIGHTH LESSON 


EIGHTH STEP TO GRADUATION 


“LIFE RANGE” 


8 URTHER GOOD HABITS are now to be passed 
upon, and attention is called to the sixty-seventh les¬ 
son. The lungs hold the key to glame and every 
form of vitality. They are called the seat of life. The 
organ or respiration is the diaphragm, a large muscle that 
is referred to as the floor of the lungs. This muscle can be 
trained to do wonderful things toward increasing the energy 
of the body. What it is and what some of its duties are, 
may be ascertained by re-reading lesson sixty-seven. 

But the next two lessons, sixty-eight and sixty-nine, are of 
the highest practical value, owing to the great good they 
accomplish in building a greater capacity for respiration. 
When the diaphragm is allowed to make its own habits, it 
slights its work very much with the result that the health 
fails and the energy of the heart and lungs is reduced to a 
minimum. 

If the muscles that surround the ribs are trained to take 
on a great increase of size, damage is done to the lungs; and 
the measurement of the girth of the chest is never a true one. 
The only thing of importance is the growth under the frame, 
which is in the lungs. 

A steady increase of the difference between the contracted 
chest and its greatest expansion, should always be sought and 
a record becomes very useful if a pupil has the ambition to 
gain in this direction. 

The test is the range, and this is the longest action of 
respiration from the beginning to the end of the in-coming 
breath. The range begins when all the air has been ex¬ 
haled that can be forced out of the lungs. The tape should 





LIFE RANGE 


3ii 

be passed under the armpits, keeping it level at every part, 
and the dimension of the contracted chest is to be observed 
and written down for future reference. This ought to be 
done several times to make sure of the greatest contraction. 

Then a full, deep, long breath should be taken in, but 
smoothly and without pumping or jerking. When the ut¬ 
most quantity has been inhaled, the tape should be again 
placed about the chest under the armpits, keeping it level in 
every part, and the record of largest expansion made. This 
should be repeated several times to secure the highest ex¬ 
pansion. 

The difference between the two extremes is the range. 

Glame is much more readily developed when the range 
is large, and is almost wholly lacking when the range is 
small. There is a clear reason for this, and it is found in 
the fact that a weak life range is hardly able to supply 
vitality to the ordinary functions; having no power to spare 
for greater work. 

The longer the life range the more powerful will be the 
glame that is generated. 

EIGHTH STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have studied carefully lessons sixty- 
seven, sixty-eight and sixty-nine, and that I have already 
increased my range of respiration^ under this plan. I will 
continue to increase it from year to year as long as I am 
able. I have signed my name in ink on this page at the 
time stated below. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




312 


LIFE ELECTRICITY 


NINETY-NINTH LESSON 


NINTH STEP TO GRADUATION 


“TERMINAL MOTIONS” 


S ESSONS seventy to seventy-four are among the most 
important in the whole course of instruction, for 
they deal with personal habits and turn them into 
sources of vital power of the highest degree. One of the 
advantages of these lessons is the fact that they do not 
require time, and but little attention. Faults cannot be 
corrected without some attention. 

In the seventieth lesson the subject of brain balance is 
brought up, and many facts are introduced that should be 
fully understood. The seventy-first lesson seeks to do away 
with the one-sided practice of work and action that feeds the 
opposite lobe of the brain without giving the needed stim¬ 
ulus to both lobes. Dis-use of a part of the brain is gen¬ 
erally followed by paresis, the most to be dreaded of modern 
forms of insanity. This dis-use may attend the habit of 
close study along one or two lines only; or the pursuit of 
one line of duties. Too much thought on any one subject 
or group of subjects will result in the brain-sections that 
are neglected lapsing into paresis. A man who made a suc¬ 
cess of business and turned his mind away from all art, all 
pleasure, all the common duties of life, died in his forty- 
third year of this disease. 

The more duties with the muscles and the various parts 
of the body, especially with the ten digits, that you per¬ 
form daily, the better will be your whole brain. 

But above all is the new method of studying the mo¬ 
tions required to do any act, and to note the number of 
such motions that may be wasted in doing it, and the small¬ 
est number that may be employed. This and the mastery 







TERMINAL MOTIONS 


3i3 


of the fiftieth lesson are needed in the present age of rush 
and hurry, more than any other good influences. If you 
can acquire and maintain calmness and avoid loss of mo¬ 
tions, you will drag the nervous system out of its wreckage; 
and no other method will accomplish this result. 

The seventy-third and seventy-fourth lessons are helpful 
beyond all comparison with training courses and influences 
that are claimed to be beneficial to humanity. Every word 
of those lessons should be studied and understood, and the 
teachings should be put into immediate practice. You may 
not know to what extent your body, nerves and mind will 
be advanced; but you will be conscious of vast improvement; 
and those of your acquaintances who come in contact with 
you from time to time will be amazed at the great strides 
toward a more powerful life that you are making. 

These are benefits that will count value a thousandfold. 

NINTH STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have carefully read and studied les¬ 
son thirty-three in connection with lessons seventy, seventy- 
one, seventy-two, seventy-three and seventy-four, and that 
I fully appreciate their value as teachings and guides to 
greater power and influence. I will master the terminal 
motions, use my left hand more in the work of fine details, 
and seek at all times to prevent loss of motions in all things 
that I do. I have signed my name in ink on this page at 
the time stated below. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




314 


ONE HUNDREDTH LESSON 


TENTH STEP TO GRADUATION 


“GLAME POWER” 


S S THESE LESSONS draw to a close the climax 
of the course is reached, for glame is the highest 
power within human grasp if it can be mastered 
and employed aright. There are sixteen lessons devoted to 
this training and they run from the seventy-fifth to the 
ninetieth. Each and every one cf them is of the greatest 
importance and should be fully understood before the end 
can be claimed. 

There are points of fine distinction that the hasty mind 
will fail to see; but we depend on your skill of discern¬ 
ment to find them and to put them into careful practice. 
Two of these points will be stated here: 

i. There is a vast difference in effect between conducted 
lightning and diffused lightning. Glame is in the human 
body diffused electricity. 

2. The setting of the muscles will not develop glame. 
The fine expression of delicate power is the key to success. 

In addition to these points, it should be always borne in 
mind that the life range must be greatly increased by months 
of steady adoption of the plan set forth in the eighth step 
to graduation. The lungs hold the central sources of all 
human power and must be developed to at last a normal 
natural capacity. 

Having done this much, it is now necessary to give spe¬ 
cial study to lessons seventy-five to seventy-nine as the basis 
of the work that is to follow. The actual practice begins 
with lesson eighty. 

The glame-stick would be kept close at hand all the time. 
We know of many men and women who have carried glame- 





GLAME POWER 


3i5 


sticks with them to have them handy. Some have had sticks 
made of polished wood; but this is not necessary. The dis¬ 
carded broom-handle is sufficient as described in lesson 
eighty. There are to-day hundreds of business men who 
have glame-sticks in their desks at their offices, and others 
at home for use there. Some never give up their use, as 
they seem to like their help even after they have found the 
way to bring glame quickly, and could easily do without 
them. 

Real progress will begin when the eighty-second lesson 
is understood and its directions put into practice. Fine tens¬ 
ing is what is to be sought, and then the effects of this new¬ 
born power will be seen as shown in the eighty-third lesson. 

PERCENTAGE OF GLAME. 

Date when one per cent was recognized. 

Date of five per cent . 

Date of ten per cent. 

Date of twenty-five per cent. 

Date of fifty per cent. 

Date of seventy-five per cent. 

Date of one hundred per cent. 

You are to be your own judge of progress, as you will be 
able to know your advancement in the development of glame 
better than any other person. No one can tell you. The 
eighty-fourth lesson contains all the explanation that is possi¬ 
ble. As you actually find glame coming into your life, you 
should write the date of each percentage in ink against the 
line as stated above. The record will be valuable to you 
in the future. 

If you fail to make progress the fault is with your life 
range under the ninety-eighth lesson and those to which that 
refers. Go about the work with a determination to master 
the range of respiration. One of the greatest teachers the 
world has produced said of this law: “ The sum of the 

best teachings and practice in the art of song, or the art 









LIFE ELECTRICITY 


316 

of health and longevity, is found in the addition, year by 
year, to the range of respiration. I can prove that every 
man and woman may increase that range perceptibly every 
year, no matter when they begin. The increased volume of 
air that enters the lungs every day brings more life, more 
vitality, more of the spirit of youth to the body and mind. 
I know of human wrecks that have been saved when past 
the age of sixty by nothing more than this one practice.” 

Do not allow failure to come to you in the effort to find 
glame. Go back to the study of the life range and thereby 
prepare for success. 

The eighty-fifth lesson is full of thought for those who 
are ambitious to delve into the secrets of life. But the 
eighty-sixth, eighty-seventh and eighty-eighth lessons are of 
still greater importance, as they bring on habits that place 
the student of this course in the ranks with those whose 
natural habits have lifted them to the heights of power 
among their fellow beings. The two final lessons are the 
climax of a great course, showing the channel by which the 
power of the will is able to become the master mind of 
every purpose and undertaking. 

In order to graduate from this step, several things are nec¬ 
essary, and they are summarized as follows: 

1. The seven dates must be filled in with ink in the per¬ 
centage of glame. 

2. The certificate must be signed. 

3. The benefits of this course of training must be esti¬ 
mated. 

4. The report must be made to Ralston University Com¬ 
pany. 

The purpose in requiring the filling in of the dates of 
percentage is to shape your work so that you will take an 
interest in its progress. 

The benefits of the course are to be passed upon by each 
and every pupil. The study of Life Electricity is the study 
of life itself, and opens the way to more gains and benefits 


GLAME POWER 


3i7 


than can be summed up in any one day of thought. The 
more you try to think of the possibilities that lead out from 
this training, the greater will be the volume of advantages 
that fill the view. This course in Life Electricity is the 
greatest course of study and training that has ever been put 
before the public. It is not the highest priced, for there 
are many others that range in cost from ten to fifty dollars 
each. It is not the longest, or the most profound; but it is 
the most elaborate, the most beautiful, the most pleasing, 
the most beneficial that has ever been devised, and its rank 
is far and away above all other courses of human training. 

This view is our own; it is the view of every person who 
has seen the work; it is sure to be the view of every intelli¬ 
gent man and woman who pursues it in the future. 

After you have mastered its various pathways and wind¬ 
ings, we wish your candid opinion and estimate of its value 
to you. We do not want a favorable view if you do not 
honestly entertain it. We want the truth as you judge it. 
Favorable opinions are not wanted for publication as we 
never publish them. Your estimate will merely be received 
and recorded as your private opinion to be kept in strict 
privacy by us. The reason for this requirement is to 
awaken you to a critical mood in the hope that you will 
probe to the utmost depth in the analysis of these gigantic 
studies. 

TENTH STEP CERTIFICATE. 

I hereby state that I have studied lessons seventy-five to 
ninety , and that I fully understand them. I have devel¬ 
oped glame, and have filled out the percentage dates in this 
last lesson. I have also reported to Ralston University 
Company my estimate of the value of this course of train¬ 
ing. I have signed all the certificates in this book on the 
pages in ink, and have not removed any part of the book 
or any page thereof. 

(Name). 

(Date). 




3i» 


REPORT TO WASHINGTON. 

To Ralston University Company, 

Washington, D. C. 

Please take notice that I have passed all the ten steps 
to graduation in the course in Life Electricity, and I 
wish to be recorded by you as a graduate of the same. I 
understand that whatever estimate I may make of the 
value to me of this course will be kept wholly private; and 
that you wish unfavorable as well as favorable opinions, if 
they are honestly made. My estimate is as follows: 


My full name and address are as follows: 


NOTICE.— The Report to Washington must be copied, 
and not made on the page of this book. It is the only copy 
that is required. 

No cost of any kind or other expense than what was paid 
at the beginning of this course, is necessary. The purpose 
of the University Company is to keep the tuition fee very 
low, and to avoid all after charges, in order that the greatest 
good may accrue to the public. 




ADVERTISEMENT. 


319 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Founded in 1876. 

Millions of members. 

There are Ralstonites in every part of the world. 

DEFINITION: “ Any man or woman who believes in living 

better in mind and body is a Ralstonite.” 

Ralstonism is a practical, everyday, common sense, yet thor¬ 
oughly scientific study of the body, its needs, its pleasures and 
its care. 

The Ralston Health Club issues books, greetings, reports, and 
awards of honor to members who win better health in a natural 
way without the use of medicines or other artificial aids. It 
has nothing for sale. It does not deal in foods, clothing, ap¬ 
paratus or other articles. It is not in such lines of business. 
The public is warned to not buy goods bearing our name, as 
we endorse nothing. 


ALL ARE INVITED TO JOIN THE CLUB. 

Membership is grand. 

It is one continual round of enjoyment to be a Ralstonite. 

It is full of good times, good things, and happy events. 

Will you become a Ralstonite now? 

COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP, ONE HUNDREDTH 
EDITION. 

This is a very large work and* includes fifty-two enormously 
valuable departments that teach the cure of disease by natural 
methods and without the use of medicines, apparatus or other 
expense. So effective are these methods that the leading physi¬ 
cians use them. 

YOU CAN CURE YOURSELF. 

YOU CAN CURE OTHERS. 

You are invited to join the THIRTY YEAR CLASS. One 
thirty year class has already reported. The second one will re¬ 
port thirty years from now; which means that they will try to 
take care of their health and keep alive and well for the next 
thirty years. 

Will YOU join? 

Total cost, seven dollars, including the giant volume as stated 
above, life-membership free of all cost, club-number, records, 
greetings and affiliation for the next thirty years. 

Address: RALSTON COMPANY, 

1327-1329 15th St. Washington, D. C. 

















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